Damon Rannoch (Switch)
by Dawn Allies
Summary: Ever wanted to switch minds with a pokemon? What about find out a little of the old world an the darker side of it?
1. Default Chapter

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I'm not much of a writter but here's my story! Enjoy or something! *wavies*  
  
({::~:: Updatetypeofthingy: Well, this is over twenty chapters, you have to excuse me, but at least I think it's good an I've been enjoying writing it, though it'll be a month or so before it's finished... which is bad as it's already been a couple of months since I started. But blah, ummm.... at the bottom of most of the chapters'll be comments but you can generally ignore them, I'm a moron an have just done that .; so yeah, umm.... not much else to say, oh, I changed stuff in about half the chapters or so, so they sound better.... also if you do read this please leave a comment thingy x.X; it's not really THAT long .;; hehe *waves anyways* have fun, byez ::~::})  
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Demons are as common place as the fairy folk of childrens tales, but who ever said they were real? And if they truely were shouldn't one know better than to make a wish upon one?   
A choice and desicion now made that can't be changed. Forever done.   
A wish granted by a demon. Now it is time that the past, present and future shall colide and a new world discovered within. Something unimaginable and unbelievable yet true is about to take place to one and nothing will be the same again...  
  
** * Damon Rannoch * **  
By Dawn Allies  
***  
  
  
"Just place your hands so one is on each side of my head just sitting with the fingers lightly touching the temples. Now, good, now that that's done... there will only be the slightest tingly sensation..."  
A moment without the slightest hint of what's to happen and it does. There isn't a flash, there isn't some sort of classic sound. There's nothing to signify that there's been a change. But of course there has, I'm no longer what I was am I?  
Let me explain.   
There are various forms of shifters within this world. A Ditto is a perfect example, it copies the form of something right down to the DNA structure or atom or whatever it is. Then you have a human form, though this tends to be more along the lines of a dress sense. Excluding some trainers that find a link with their pokemon to such a degree that they are near one. Also the occasional were Pokemon/human. But me, I'm something completely different.  
To look me in the mirror right now all you'd see is a young male trainer, messy hair and untidy clothes, maybe I've been running. I look like I have with various grass and dirt stains over my skin and clothes. But I haven't been running, the Pokemon that's now sitting on the ground in front of me did it.   
It's not hard what I've just done, it doesn't hurt, least not any of the times I've done it. And there isn't many ways it can exactly go wrong, though I couldn't guarantee that nothing could, I'm sure there's something.   
Anyways, like I said before, to explain. Me, I'm something different to the normal, obviously. I guess really, the closest name I could place upon myself for the moment is a body switcher. And no, I'm not some sort of alien. I just made a wish and it happened to come true unlike most. I don't actually know how long ago it was now, probably a while, at least a couple of years, can't really remember, there's large gaps in my memories.   
Ok, well, uh. ...I should of thought this out before I decided to tell, oh well. What I can do is switch minds with any Pokemon or person or other sort of living creature with some sort of being. I can't become trees or plants, mainly as.. well, I'll explain why now. To do a switch of minds I have to be touching at least one of the temples of the head of who I want to take the body of or them touching mine. So, since I haven't a clue where this would be on any sort of plant I can't turn into one, heh.   
"Vul...."  
Oh, right, the Pokemon.   
Well, this is my most recent switch, though it's nothing special, Are'ea is my pokemon, or I'm her's I guess when she's in my present body and I'm in her's. So yeah. She's a good pokemon, shocked at first when I did it to her for the first time, but I think she enjoyed the experience after yammering in a vulpine tongue for a good hour and not moving from the spot she'd been sitting in for the initial change. Something with an expansion of mind and to be able to go about business with no fear, at least, compared to what she'd had as a Vulpix. Despite what we people would like to think, we don't got it hard compared to a lot. Especially Pokemon to the lower parts of the food chain, even some of the higher.   
But anyway, she's my Pokemon, one of a couple, though the only one I actually keep confined within a Pokéball. I have various others around somewhere that I see when I meet and have permission to use their form when I need to. I try to keep it all to myself really, I don't enjoy switching forms as much as I used to. A couple of small problems a long time ago somewhat put me off...   
"Oh, don't look at me like that Are'ea, I was not sighing.."  
She's just giving me 'that' look, meaning she doesn't believe a word of what I'm saying and a few other things probably. Hmm.. oh well, so what? Gah!  
"What did you do to me this time? ...eargh... Oh, seriously gross! What in Houou's Heaven's did you do? Look at this, oh.. oh, oh no, you didn't... oh, please tell me you didn't Are'ea...oh.. shit."   
Wonderful way to start a day... forced to switch forms with my pokemon, and then after a wonderful romp through the forest I find that my most trustworthy and loyal pokemon went rolling in some turds, "Wonderful Behaviour!"   
"Don't you dare... you know this is totally you're fault, I left you alone for what? Four! Hear me, Four Minutes! Bloody hell.."   
She sits, she looks at me and doesn't give it a second thought as she starts to watch a yellow butterfly dance around nearby, sigh. She always does this, ignorance is bliss so they say... mumble.   
  
A good decent clean later and I'm now sitting to the edge of a small pond or lake or something that somewhere over to my left turns into a stream. For the moment I guess I'm happy to just sit and watch what's left of a selection of browns and greens float along out of eyesight. The last remains of the wonderful surprise Are'ea gave me before we switched back. She's in her Pokéball right now, I wasn't exactly in the mood to put up with her right now, I've got some things to think about. Anyways, I wanted to write something in my notebook, and she doesn't know about it, so it's somewhat easier if she's not out to nose about. Even if she can't read she's a major hassle and well, there's no point, I'm perfectly capable to look after myself anyways.   
I've been drawing a map lately, and some designs. I like to draw, just well, something I've always done, they used to say I was good. I guess I must be better by now, I think I am, just looking back at one or two I've still got for a while ago. Not much better, and I'm not exactly the best, oh well. Also I've got some writing, just notes mostly on the various portraits and stuff, just to say what they are, or speech bubbles and what not.   
Lately I've been trying to remember how it all happened and I'm pretty sure I've got most of it down. The only real problem I've been having is getting the look that was in the things eyes or eye to correct myself. I just can't seem to make it look right.   
  
You want to know what it was that did this? Or well, what I did to myself.   
  
******** Short! Yep! And and... the next is LONGER! *wavies* ********* 


	2. 2

Well, I was very much the same age of what I am now I'm pretty sure, I was going after some sort of wild pokemon, I can't remember what. I don't think I ever actually knew, I just knew that there was a flash of silvery blue and I was after what ever it was. I was a young trainer, it was some sort of new pokemon I'd never seen before, what do you expect?   
I didn't find it, obviously. But I did find something else. I paused just staring in a weird mix of awe, surprise and revulsion. I know my nose wrinkled up a little as it stank out a good couple of meters around its body. At first I thought it was dead, it was kinda just laying there in a heap like as if it had just fallen there a bag of bones and skin. Taking a tentative step forwards I covered my nose and tried to get a better look at whatever it was. Facing away from me it wasn't easy to see, but I knew it had a wing, though it didn't look much like there was another. Not that the first was much to go by, there were large rips and tears through the entire thin membranes. The first thought that came to mind was it was a new kind of bat pokemon, because it was rather furry looking and well, it had the bats wings. Though I didn't know of any bats with small horns and such sticking out from parts of the wing. Also the creature was what seemed to be originally some shade of white, or at least pale grey. Kinda hard to tell as it had blotches of dirt and smears of red through its fur.   
Taking a couple of more steps closer I bobbed down closer to the it trying hard not to gag at the same time as I clamped my fist extremely tight over my nose to keep the awful stench away. For the first time I realised that it was actually still alive, it stirred. And then to my utter amazement, the fault of which I got to fall on my backside, the thing disappeared from the place in front of me with a spray of small black and red sparks.   
I didn't move for a moment or two but gasped and nearly gagged again as the thing appeared in front of me almost nose to nose. It was cat like I guess, but it was gross and it was hard not to keep from spewing my guts forwards as it freaked me out to the 'enth degree. It was, as I had thought used to be white as seeing it from the front there were less marks of grey, though seemingly more of red. Though an excuse for that would be that the thing was missing more than a couple of body parts. I had been right about the wing, there was only the one. But there was also only one arm, one small triangle white ear, one pale eye and parts of a long tail seemed to of been removed, including a large layer of skin and fur over the large pad at the end to expose bone and muscle. At least I liked to think all the white parts were bone, some bits were moving in ways that I don't think I'm exactly correct. At the end of one of it's long bony rear feet were long yellowing claws, though thankfully only on one of them as well. The wing wasn't moving as it hovered in front of me, seeming to do what I was doing to it, checking the other out. I was frozen by mixed emotions and from a sudden movement of the creature and a glint in its single eye I think it was amused by this. I'm fairly sure it was amused about me being so confused actually.   
The only real movements I did do at first were mostly flinches as this thing moved itself around me in lazy loops and rings looking me over, prodding as well. Which was most uncomfortable, mainly as the picture of those moving white things from within it's exposed tail flesh kept popping up inside my head. Not nice thoughts.   
  
And I did jump, quiet high considering how I was positioned with my hands behind my back and sitting on and the ground and all. "Uh. Um, you said that..?" I just stared at the creature as it finally stopped moving around and just hovered in front of me a while.   
It seemed to smile as it spoke, a light head nod accompanying the beginning and a clap of single paw to a non-flesh poking through part of its tail at the end.   
"Uh.." Like as if I knew what to say, I had some sort of weird pokemon I'd even heard of before, let alone seen, that was seriously freaking me out and it was acting well, I don't know.   
That giggle at the end didn't really make me feel anywhere near better, "Um, uh, no, my tongue is uh.. fine, what..... what are you?" I can say I surprised myself at my courage! Heh. Ok, sue me, I'm allowed to boast.   
It smiled again and spun around my head a couple of times, The thing smiling still and smiling all the more in its way as I quickly got myself to my feet not wanting to really do anything to upset it. I wasn't stupid enough for the time to think that something that was small couldn't be strong, also just the look of it didn't exactly fit to say it was weak. Last thing, it was hovering. The wing seemed utterly useless, good clue as to say it was psychic type and psychic's are generally extremely cool types of pokemon as well as usually being exceptionally strong, especially when well trained.   
It was giggling again and I was becoming somewhat more confused, my wonderful tumble of uh's and um's followed. It just smiled all the more and backflipped to sit just off of my left shoulder.   
The creature climbing atop my head with more than a few cringes on my behalf I pulled up the courage to actually say something properly, "Uh, so... umm, what like umm.. are you exactly? Because uh, not to be offensive or anything.... but I've never seen anything like you before and like..uh,"   
It's face became nose to nose to mine, though upside down this time, Now I got to be dumbstruck, "Uh, I, like, er.. I thought Mew's were meant to be uh..." Now I ask you, who's willing to say something offensive to a freaky white creature that's missing half it's limbs and is covered in scars and sores that are more than a little obvious from the distance I was at when it's sitting on your head and nose to nose with you.   
It leant back then disappeared leaving my head feeling surprisingly lighter without the extra weight atop of it. Now really, I might of been thinking this thing was some sort of monster and maybe once or twice the thought went across my mind of other creatures, but a demon wasn't what I was thinking of in the least. I never believed in such a thing. "You can't be a demon, they aren't real!" That sent it laughing its head off at me, rather reassuring that was.   
"Ok, fine, well if you're a demon, what are you doing here?"   
it said before leaping straight over my head and disappearing through the trees for less than a moment before popping back with a small flash of sparks in front of me.   
I know I raised an eyebrow and couldn't believe it, strange little creature, and I really didn't believe totally that the thing was a demon, some sort of deformed creature, a mutation or something.. freak. You get those sometimes, they're on tv and stuff.   
For a second it seemed to look hurt or offended about something, though what I couldn't think of as I hadn't actually said anything. But it just smiled and titled its head obviously having thought of something else, It started to giggle and spin around extreme fast on the spot, so fast that I stopped watching as I was becoming dizzy.   
Suddenly the strangest thought popped into my mind, something I'd always thought and wondered about, as long as wished, though I knew it could never happen, 'It'd be cool to be whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.' The thought was there less than a second and as I shook my head and blinked a few times I realised I was sitting on my behind again and that a white face was staring dead into mine. I choked on a shout of surprise as the Mew Demon jumped off of me and smiled, doing a backflip just after before sitting in the air just a short distance from me.  
  
It's single eye started to shine and I just blinked at the thing a couple of hundred times confused out my brain, "Umm.... uh, excuse me... uh, Ran-er.. What do you know.. or um, what uh.." As was obvious I could remember the name well and I just knew what to say didn't I.   
I covered my ears out of a habit, didn't make much difference as the shout was inside of my head. It seemed most impressed with itself over that last rhyming bit as it's small chest filled out a little.   
"Um, a wish?"  
  
"Uhh, what kinda wish?"  
  
And my hands went back to my ears once more, of course no point again. Trying to get rid of the ringing inside my head with the extra thought of why the little white thing wanted to know a wish really didn't help much.   
"Umm... well, I've always wanted to be something I'm not, like, uh, a Pidgey so I could fly or a Rapidash so I could run, or uh.. like, but also, like.. uh, I had to be able to change back, so I could see my friends and everything, and like so I could change into anything I wanted, like a ditto! So I um, guess that'd be a wish.." It was something I'd always wanted, that's true, and I'd thought about different draw backs for different things so that's why I wanted to be able to turn back. But being able to be something I wasn't was just the best thing I could imagine possible.   
It was ecastic, despite that one moment where it froze, spinning and darting around me I was more than a little bewildered and my head was spinning again as I tried to keep my eyes on the little white form. So I gave up and just looked forwards.   
Blinking it was sitting in the air infront of me again and I blinked back at it, "Uh, yeah, my wish I guess would be that I could turn into something else when ever I wanted but be able to change back when ever I wanted as well.... Oh and like, I don't want any pain when it happens.. yeah." Good after thought if I say so myself, who wants to be able to turn into things but go through Houndour's Hell to get to it. Though the Mew Demon seemed somewhat disappointed as I said those last words. Wonders why...  
  
It jumped up closer to me again, though this time it wasn't face to face, as it placed one paw to my left temple and then one part of its tail to my other. Lucky for me I couldn't see which part, but as far as I could tell nothing was moving, even if it did feel a little cold and wet, but the paw felt similar. Which actually, I'm not so sure was that reassuring.   
And with that it started humming, and if I thought you couldn't possibly hum so massively out of tune I was wrong. The song kept dropping from extremely low notes to the reverse of notes of ear splitting degrees. The speed and everything about the song was totally erratic and I can't help but say I'm glad it was inside my head and not from outside as I'd of become deaf if my eardrums had had to put up with it.   
As quickly as it started it was over, which I was most grateful of, even if I was a little confused, though that didn't hit me that hard until a few moments later as I started to realise there was a lot of things wrong with the picture. I felt exceedingly light, my vision was brighter and I could see further up and down than before, though not as far around. But the number one thing that suddenly made me freak is that I seemed to be looking at myself, and I was heaps bigger than I could ever possibly remember. Suddenly the air around me went rushing past as if I was falling and a moment later I felt a heavy jolt through most of my body as I hit something below me rather hard. I blinked a couple of times and had a mind to scream, which I did, " 'WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Now that didn't sound right in the least and I started screaming harder. That is, until suddenly there was pressure coming from all sides around my body and my mouth was roughly shoved closed so as to muffle my speech and I got to notice for the first time some loud rumbles vibrating through the air from above. I shut up then and blinked once more before looking up at myself, realising that I was actually holding what was now me. I was extremely freaked out and I still had that mind to scream, but this time I pressed it into submission and decided on trying to figure out what those rumblings were.   
As I watched myself I noticed the mouth moving and that they were in co-ordination with the sounds that were moving through the air. I was speaking.. and I couldn't understand it. That didn't help. It stopped and I started to move again, this time the hands that were holding me slowly dropped me to the ground and put two fingers to each of my temples lightly. And a moment later I was blinking rapidly and looking down at the Mew again with very wide eyes and quickly withdrawing my hands away from it. "What on earth have did you do to me!!"   
It blinked once up at with me with an indignant look and crossed its paw across its chest, which didn't give anywhere near the desired effect. And with that it made to leave, within another instant and it had, without the slightest backwards glance, leaving me confused out of my mind and wondering what on earth had just happened.   
With that I got up and left the area myself and within an hour I had convinced myself I'd been dreaming or something of the like and went about trying to forget the image of the Demon Mew.  
  
  
  
*********Rannoch my character! And and... this dude and his Vulpix.... who don't have names, damnit x.X; Blah, anyways, Rannoch and his multiple personas is mine mine mine! My lil Demon Mew that me'z drew and created and brought into existence and got stuffed into my crappy story! He's also one my rp characters so ner! x.x; *wavies* Hehe ^.^; Well it alllll mine! So HA! Except maybe the whole pkmn thing... that's not mine, awww... oh well! ************** 


	3. 3

"Hey! Boy! Yeah, you over there!"  
I blinked in surprise and looked up, there was a blonde girl a couple of years older than me standing on the other side of the waterway looking at me with a rather red face that kept looking away and over to the trees beside and behind her. It took me a moment or two to actually realise why, then I got to blush redder than she was and quickly went about grabbing something to wear. I'd been using a large rock to lean on for my notebook as I sat in the cool water.  
"Uh, you can look properly now if you want..." I wasn't loosing my red face anytime soon.  
"Well that's better. Who ever thought of writing in the nude... even if you are underwater!" She was giving me the snobbiest look I'd ever received, both as a pokemon or a person.   
"Well I wasn't exactly expecting anyone to come creeping up on me was I!"   
"What were you writing anyway?" she asked totally ignoring what I had said.   
So I decided to do the right thing, I ignored her right on back and grabbed my notebook and left out the other side of the pond thing and up onto the shore, happy as can be to ignore the girl being there now. Which of course got some indignant sounds from her direction as she huffed and turned tail to leave. But I guess something called her back because a moment later I heard a large splash and despite myself, looking around behind me I saw an overly large croc' coming at me from the water with the blonde riding on its back. Obviously she hadn't wanted to get her feet wet.   
I watched as with a gracious jump from her Pokémon's back the blonde dropped off her pokemon and recalled it back into its pokeball in one before sweeping some hair back behind her ear and giving me what I guess was meant to be a dazzling smile. But she'd ignored me earlier and made a wonderful comment on my behalf, I wasn't going to go for the nice act now, even if she was pretty.   
"You would of done better to of stayed on the other side, I'm leaving as you can see, so it doesn't matter that you came here, as I'm not staying."   
She raised and eyebrow and said, "Well don't we have a mouth on us? And at your age, are you one of those spoilt brat kids who didn't get enough discipline or something?"   
I rolled my eyes at her and made a short wave before turning my back on her again and went about leaving properly. A heavy weight on my shoulder and I found myself held back, "What?" was the automatic thing to come from my mouth. "It's rude to just leave someone when they're talking to you, you know?"   
I flicked her fingers off my shoulder with a side long glance and answered her back, "Well, it's just as rude to ignore what someone's saying." Now was her turn to roll her eyes and she ran a couple of steps ahead and in front of me blocking my path. "Get out of the way, I want to leave," I stopped and looked up at her, I hate being short, and girls seem to have this thing where they're taller than you when they're just a couple of years older than you when you're the age I am. It's rather unfair. Her eyes were nice though, to say something nice about her, a pretty shady blue.   
"Well I was just going to ask you if you knew the directions somewhere anyway, and I'm sorry if I sounded rude before, but you really shouldn't just uh, be like you were when people could walk by." I frowned, "Well, I wasn't exactly expecting you to walk by was I? This isn't a well known area and there isn't any major towns or anything around her for miles, not even a holiday house." Now she was starting to get a little awkward as she didn't have much to say, "Well.. like, you..uh... Well you should of known then that this is the perfect area to find wild pokemon and that trainers must come here all the time!"   
Raising an eyebrow I shook my head, "No, I seriously doubt it, large sections of this area are national forest and you can't capture pokemon, and what ever is left is privately owned land, you can't catch pokemon in most places around here. And no one checks the area, they just leave it to its own device as everyone knows there isn't anything special here, it's just a lot of trees and grass with all your normal common pokemon in it."   
I couldn't help but grin as she looked rather dumbfounded at me. She was lost for words and I took the opportunity to walk around and past her, happy to leave now. But once more she was straight back in front of me with a hand out to stop me, "Wait. Well, since you know so much about this area you can help me with where I need to go." She was smiling again and I was scowling, that was not what I wanted, I don't enjoy having a travelling companion, aside from Are'ea that is. Sighing I looked at her again dead in the eye, "Where do you want to go?"   
"Oh good, you will help then," grinning she clapped her hands and quickly turned to grab her backpack and pull out something from the side, "Well, I have to get here by 7pm or I'm going to miss this big party that's like starting at 7:30 that just about everyone is going to, and well, I don't know where I am on the map so I can't uh, figure out where exactly it is I need to go."   
I looked down at the map she was holding in front of her and laughed out loud, which got a look of surprise from her, "Who did you get that off?"  
"An old woman back uh.. in the direction I came from a couple of days ago, Why?"  
"No wonder you're lost. I bet you just told her where you wanted to go didn't you? And you've never been around this area before." She nodded to each with an increasing amount of worry showing on her face.   
Reaching forwards I grabbed the map and ripped it up into four small squares which got a shout from miss blondie. "Hey! What are you doing? I paid heaps for that map!"   
Laughing again I explained, "Well good for you, you wasted it, that was a fake map. There aren't any swamps around here and that had five large ones on it, also, it had marked at the top 'Viridian City 7,000miles' when anyone with half a brain would know we're north of Viridian as it is, so we couldn't possibly go seven thousand miles north to get to it."   
Now she was looking furious and numerous foul words were starting to spill forth from her mouth along with a large line of things she was going to do to the old woman who'd given her the map and reassured her it was of the area. I just stood back and laughed. It was most amusing, she was stupider than she looked. An angry glare shot at me didn't make me stop either, but a slap across the face got me by surprise and did make me shut up. She was still glowering at me as I held my face.  
"What was that for!?"   
She continued to glare at me and crossed her arms across her chest, "You didn't have to laugh little boy."   
Now I was offended, "I'm NOT little!"   
"You are so, LITTLE Boy!" and with that she poked her tongue out at me and grabbed a Pokéball off her waist coat and held it out in front of her. I glared at her a little as she grinned at me and eyed the single Pokéball at my waist a moment, "I know, we'll have a pokemon battle over it. If I win you have to take me to where I want to go, if you win I'll leave you alone and wont call you little boy anymore, though you'll still have to tell me where to go."   
Now that didn't exactly seem very fair to me, plus the fact the only pokemon I'd seen her use so far was a Feraligator, and as much as I have faith in Are'ea she's no match for such a strong water type, and like I said before she's my only pokemon. I frowned and played one hand over my Pokéball a moment, "Fine, one on one only, and no restrictions." A single smile flitted across my face a moment, as she frowned at me and mumbled something under her breath.   
"Ok, fine with me! It doesn't matter anyway, you're not going to win shrimp." With a grin she flicked around the Pokéball in her hand through her fingers and her other hand suddenly swung out another and it exploded out a pokemon as she leaped backwards nimbly giving room for her giant pokemon. A loud grumbly cry of "Saaaaaaaaaur!" gave a grin to each of us.   
"Good then I choose Are'ea!" and I threw out my pokemon to stand just a foot or so from in front of me. I looked at the girl and thought for a moment, "$700 to the winner as well, I could do with some money," a snicker and I quickly called Are'ea towards me as she shouted an agreement and laughed openly at the size of my pokemon.   
Whispering to my pokemon I quickly bent down low and placed my fingers lightly atop her temples. Closing my eyes I opened them to find the world somewhat dinner but also more detailed and also, if I wanted a heat sense came on line giving everything around me mostly a dull grey colour. The exceptions being a couple of wild pokemon that were watching from the nearby trees and the other trainer and her pokemon.   
What I was doing I don't call cheating. How can it be, the same principles apply, I'm just the pokemon and I actually have to do the work instead of the pokemon while the pokemon does some of the thinking as well. It also works better as Are'ea knows what her body can do better than I do, so she's able to access what she can do better than I can, and in my body she has a better view of the battle so can know what to do better, giving me the orders to preform. I like to think of it as a perfect team, as I also have the experience of what the other pokemon is about to do better than Are'ea from watching other people battle and can preform some moves better than she can as I have a mind to think differently from what she normally would. It's taken some practice but we've figured out a communication system, most of which I taught her the most basic human words for her to say to me so she doesn't look too odd shouting in vulpine to me, though she does have a habit of doing that quiet often anyways.  
I looked around and without a moments hesitation ran out to the right of Are'ea and closer to where the forest was so as not to be too close to the water and creating a larger area for the battlefield. Sizing up the opponent I looked at Are'ea as she did the same thing and we gave each other a reassuring nod. It was a Venusaur, well trained to a point, but an obviously a late evolvement and it had only been recently so it wasn't going to be too fast on its feet. Not that Venusaur's are usually that fast on them in the first place. But its reactions would be slow, though the benefit of the doubt was fair game. One thing though was that the Venusaur was a lower level than me, this should be a decent work out on the other Pokémon's behalf.   
I gave the other team the first move as I wanted to see how they worked together and it didn't take long before the attack was under way. A group of large vines came flying at me and I got an order to use my agility, not that I wasn't going to anyway and I was darting in and around the snapping vines as they moved around me. As a thought I took a few snaps at vines that came too close to me using a weak bite and the vines were quickly recalled back to their master.  
Standing still a good distance from the overly large grass pokemon I realised I was going to need to get in close to it to get good effect as a Venusaur relies more on its defensive long range attacks than on anything close contact, where as I was fairly even at both.   
Suddenly the air was filled with blue powder and I found myself suddenly getting drowsy and the lumbering Venusaur was charging at me while I was being lulled to sleep. Shaking the effect off just in time as a large wall of green came charging down on me I sprung up and onto the back of the Venusaur, which all in all wasn't the best idea. Having just released the large amount of sleeping powder the leaves and flower of the pokemon was still heavily coated in a large amount of it, I'd have to get this over and done with quickly.   
Holding my stance with difficulty as pollen was going up my nose and continually making me more sleepy and having the Venusaur start thrashing below me I was fighting both with staying in the one position and awake at the same time. But I managed it and with a flash of my amber eyes I was heating up the fire that lives deep within my small chest and calling it forth. The other trainer seemed to be getting this idea and she was shouting at her pokemon. A vine suddenly caught me around my middle and hauled me skywards away from the pokemon, but it was too late, the fire was already spilling forth from my open mouth and a long stream of flames was dancing over the body of the Venusaur. A stomp, stomp, and it flopped down onto its belly, blackened and knocked out, the vine holding me suddenly dropping and slamming me down against the ground.  
Winded and slightly dizzy with both the effects of the last traces of sleep powder and the hard slam I had just received I missed the Venusaur being recalled and Are'ea running up to me with a grin. I was shaking my head when I realised that I suddenly felt perfectly fine and I was looking down at a very happy Vulpix that was yapping at me most enthusiastically. Best thing about switching forms is you leave all the fatigue and injuries behind in the form you just left. Though I doubt I had done much damage to Are'ea, the fight hadn't lasted that long and the sleeping powder was already disappearing.   
The girl was scowling at me though as she put the Venusaur's Pokéball away. "You have a weird way of training your pokemon Boy, most people just speak English when talking to their pokemon." I just grinned at her and she looked away, I had won. Meaning, money for me, her no longer calling me little, AND, her leaving me alone. Perfect.  
I quickly walked over to her and put my hand out, "Money please."  
She glared at my hand then quickly grabbed her backpack fully off her back and knelt down to pull some things out from within it so she could get her money. "Oh damn, I haven't got any money left..." she smiled though as she tipped her purse upside down on the ground and looked at me. Now was my turn to give her a dirty look, "Fine. But you're leaving me now. Farewell," and I started walking away for what I hoped was the last time. But of course, it wasn't.  
"Hey! You forgot something, you still have to help me with getting to where I want to get to. You promised."  
I rounded on her, "I did not promise you anything, and you have to walk that way for at least ten miles, you're not going to make it before 7. Now, if you don't mind, I'll be leaving."  
But she did mind and with a tug at the back of my shirt she had turned me away from the direction I wanted to go again, "Ok, well thanks then... Sure you don't want to come? I've been like, ... well on my own a while now and it'd be nice to have someone to talk to for once." She was trying that smile again, and I could see perfectly well why no one would want to spend too much time with her. But the nagging thought of spending some time with someone was actually starting to sound appealing, I hadn't been around anyone in a while and as much as she wasn't that appealing, it was nice to have someone to speak to and get a response that was in English.   
I sighed and shrugged, "Fine, if I must, I guess you'll probably get lost on your own anyway." She didn't like that in the least but didn't comment, probably glad she'd gotten some company, even if they were some years younger than her. "Well good! And by the way, I'm Kandy. And don't give me that look, it's my real name," she'd started blushing again and an invisible fleck of dirt had suddenly appeared on one of her sleeves.   
"Well, I'm.. uh.."   
"Uh? That's a worse name than mine... who names their kid Uh?"  
I had a mind to hit her right then, "It's not Uh!" But I couldn't remember what it was. Hadn't used it in a long time, things have a habit of being like that, don't use them in a while and you forget.   
"Well? What's your name? Or do we need to have another pokemon battle so I can find out?"   
I rolled my eyes, "My name's Rannoch."   
"Rannoch?"  
"Uh, yeah, Damon Rannoch."  
She blinked and shrugged, "Well I guess that's normal enough, but if we were going for formalities my full name is Kandy Mayer."   
That's not my name, but the first thing that popped into mind, oh well, not like as if anyone was going to know anyway. What a wonderfully fitting name, Damon Rannoch, Demon Ran'nno'ch, the end's pronounced like a K instead of ch. Oh well, it seems I have a companion for a while, or at least, for the next couple of miles or so.  
  
***************** Blah! This'll never get finished, oh well. ^.^ *wavies* ******************** 


	4. 4

Seems that it was more than a few hours, but despite what I said we did actually manage to get to where she wanted to go. Though this wasn't so much because of me, more of the fact that we used her Pidgeot and flying on one of them somewhat saves time. Sitting arrangements weren't the most comfortable and me commenting on the fact that why didn't she ask her pokemon to help her in the first place didn't help. So we both arrived at this thing that Kandy had been trying to get to for over a month with plenty of time to spare.   
I got a lovely explanation of what exactly it was some time afterwards. But between arrival and that time I got left outside a rather large house staring at a closed door and listening to the sounds of a large group of people talking inside. Kandy had met up with some friends straight after we had landed and ignoring me once more had run off to talk to them about what ever they wanted to talk about.   
For the most part I had a mind to just leave there and then, but the sounds coming from inside where arousing my curiosity and I sneaked in quietly after another small group of people that were talking rather loudly. Inside of the house was nice enough, someone had put up some fancy silver and white decorations that matched basically everything else that had been set up to entertain the large amount of people that were wondering about and talking to each other. I eavesdropped on a couple of conversations but most of them where just useless gossip and talk about people not seeing each other for so and so amounts of time and boring stuff like that. I eyed Kandy a while from the other side of the room but she wasn't looking my way so she didn't notice me, even though a couple of the people around her pointed me out and said something that I couldn't of possibly heard over the laughter that had just erupted from a table nearby.   
Walking around some more, mostly keeping out of peoples way and trying to keep out of sight, I overheard something that caught my attention for a moment.   
"No, no, no. We haven't proven it yet.. I was just saying-"  
"Oh, no you didn't. You said that you'd caught one of them."   
"I meant caught a glimpse, not actually caught one. And it was only for a moment, most people don't even believe me-"  
"Well what do you expect?" a third man butted in on the conversation, "Everyone but you seems to realise that stories are just stories. There's no truth in most of them, and what little there is, is usually hardly ever noteworthy."   
The first person didn't look the least bit put off even if the second did look a little huffy, "Of course that'd be something you'd say Peterman. You don't believe anything anyone else finds out about themselves, you have to actually be the one there doing it or-" "I just like to make sure there's a professional touch to things Marcus," Peterman sneered not letting Marcus finish.   
I was wondering what the first person had originally seen and hoping they'd actually mention it but a short lady came up and excused herself and took him away killing the conversation. I some what doubted that Marcus and Peterman got along too well since Marcus scowled at Peterman as he smiled and excused himself and walked off somewhere else. This left Marcus sitting at the table on his own and mumbling something under his breath that I couldn't quiet catch as he looked around... and spotted me standing next to a pillar on the other side of the table. I smiled meekly and quickly made my way away, which Marcus obviously didn't think much of as he got up and left himself, walking over to a group of well dressed people two tables away.   
My mind had gone back to what this party was meant to be for in the first place when Kandy suddenly appeared and grabbed my left arm and started dragging me across the room. She only stopped once she had pushed me into the center of a group of giggling girls ranging from six to sixteen. "Well everyone, this is Damon Rannoch and he's a Pokemon Trainer!"   
I just stood there and went bright red and most of the older girls burst out laughing and two of them dragged Kandy off to the side muttering something under their breath. This was not in the least the most comfortable position and when someone opened my backpack some how and pulled out my sketchbook it didn't get much better. "Hey Kandy, your Boyfriend's got a diary!" Now there was a mad scramble as I tried to grab my book back and most of the girls crowded around the one with it making sure I couldn't.   
"Ooo.... look at this... He's pretty good at these isn't he?"   
"What's that supposed to be?"   
"Awww, isn't that soo cute!"   
"Eww, gross. What do you mean that's cute?"   
I was still trying to grab my sketchbook when Are'ea suddenly decided she wanted to join in in what ever was happening and came screaming out of her Pokéball with a screech of a cry. All the girls around the one with my book jumped back in surprise at the loud sound, the one actually holding the book throwing it into the air. Are'ea taking note of everything around her automatically took up a stance in front of me with hackles raised and a low growl rumbling from her small chest, eyes gaining a bright crimson colour of rage. Everyone around me took that moment to take a step backwards and I smiled for the first time. Bobbing down I whispered something in vulpine to her and she suddenly sat down on her haunches as if nothing had happened and went about cleaning herself ignoring all the girls that were now eyeing her wearily.   
"Hey, Carla, isn't that like, the thing that uh, what's his name is looking for or something?" said one of the younger girls looking at my sketchbook where it lay on the ground with two of the pages visible that I'd been sketching pictures of the Mew Demon on. I quickly scrambled to grab it and no one else tried to stop me as I quickly made my way towards an exit as fast as I could. Are'ea was at my heels and I didn't see anything of what the group of girls were doing, I just wanted to leave as fast as I could.   
But of course I didn't get to as I tripped over one of my own feet and went sailing across the floor straight under three tables before skidding to a halt under a fourth. At least I was only a few meters from an exit. Problem was I was under a table that people had suddenly started sitting down at as someone had just made an announcement for everyone to take a seat. Feet and legs appearing from all sides I was becoming wonderfully squished and the possibilities of exit were limiting so quickly that by the time I'd looked around there weren't any left. Now this left me with either the options of waiting until people got up again so I could sneak away quietly or just try and crawl out now and be totally embarrassed. Though the fact that I was going to be kicked numerous times and I was just as likely to become embarrassed if someone realised I was under here didn't help much. Are'ea had disappeared and feeling my Pokéball I realised she'd recalled herself not wanting to be in the position I was.   
So I got to listen to who ever it was that was meant to speak. At least I was going to find out what this whole thing about, that was about the only plus I could think of. It started with a couple of different people commenting on the work of other people, most of which I'd never heard of before and doubt I'll remember anyway. Most of this accompanied various amounts of applause, none all the enthusiastic. Then one of the chairs from my table moved out and one of the pairs of feet disappeared as a name was called out. There was no applause and the whole room seemed to of gone dead quiet, why this was I didn't have a clue and trying to look between two of the chairs and then past another table didn't prove to give me any more of a better view.   
The man started with a cheerful welcome to everyone and thanks for them coming to the gathering and such. Then he started on commenting on various people like the last couple of people, though in a more chirpy manner than anyone else thus far. There was some awkward clapping before it quickly went silent again and the chirping man went back to talking. Mostly about the research he'd been preforming over the last couple of years and different conclusions that he had come upon during his work. This had started to become as utterly dull as the last speakers and I had quickly started to tune out until a word I wasn't sure he'd actually spoken was said.   
"Yes, it does seem to be true that Pokemon did at one time in the distant past actually have cultures and religions all of their very own. We have found both evidence of structures built to the specific requirements of some species of Pokemon and various artefacts that go to prove that some even practiced pagan like rituals to primitive forms of gods and other higher forms of beings. Some of which have appeared in stories and depictions of our own past."  
"Most of the beings worshipped were of some strange quality above their fellows that made them stand out. What we call a 'Shiny' Pokemon now a days were seen to be of something close to a royalty status, but creatures with even stranger deformations were seen to be able to do things very much like magic. One of my personal favourites being something called a Demon Myuu. Lately I have been devoting more of my attention to this specific idea of a Pokemon overlord and the likenesses that have shown up when compared to some of our own fables and legends of past times."   
From here I tried to listen as hard as I could, but I still couldn't get all of it, there were continual murmurs coming from the people from other tables around the room. And when it got dark so the person who was speaking could show some slides I had no idea what was happening. Most of what he was saying was just theory and the people around me didn't seem to be taking a lot of it seriously, lucky me I knew better. Though some things that he did say did sound rather outrageous and unlikely, burning cities and villages, cursing generations, making things live forever in some sort of tortured state of non-being.   
We he'd finally finished he must of bowed or something and the lights came back on as everyone took up a slow applause that didn't last much longer than any of the others. Someone said thank you for speaking, but I didn't get to hear what they called him as someone shouted out something that sent at least half the room laughing, including it would seem the person himself. It took a lot longer than when he had left to when the man arrived and the next person had already stood up to speak his own point on something. It was the Peterman person from before, I'd already decided I didn't like him much even if it seemed that almost everyone in the place did.   
A shuffling of chairs and the man had come back again, but his chair didn't appear again, instead a face did and I jumped a little in surprise, nearly hitting my head against the table top. It was that guy I'd heard speaking earlier to Peterman and Marcus, the one who got called away. He smiled and said rather quietly, "I doubt it's very much comfortable under there, would you like to come out or was I wrong?" I smiled a little back and with him moving out of the way I made my way quietly out from under the table so as to gain as little attraction to myself as possible. I needn't of bothered, the lights had gone out again and everyone seemed rapt in whatever it was that the Peterman man was saying, everyone's eyes were trained on him.   
"I noticed you earlier as you went sliding across the floor. I thought you'd left already, but here you are. Enjoy the trip?" He was whispering as he spoke and the smile hadn't left his face, I couldn't decide if he was old or young, but there were a few greying hairs here and there, just not many wrinkles except the ones that came from smiling like he was. "Uh," was my only response. He looked out over the table and towards where a large screen had been set up on one of the walls that was showing some paintings of primitive people building things or something.   
"Never thought he was all that interesting personally, all dependent on hard facts, not a single leap of faith in his step. Though don't you go telling anyone I said that," but he grinned and I could tell more than a couple of people knew he thought like that. "I heard your name was Damien or Daniel or something was it? Interesting name that is, much better than Bob if I say so myself."  
"Um, actually, it's Damon, and uh, your name is Bob?"   
He grinned and leaned back in his chair a little, "Oh, not really, I just prefer it. Brendon Oatis-Barb Brytanical III is the full name, Bob's just easier." Sitting on the ground and looking up at him I raised an eyebrow, "I see.. How did you know my name?" But he chose to ignore the question for the moment, "Would you like to get out of here? No offence to old Pratty, but his parties are usually awfully boring and this is going to go on for another two hours or so, and I've heard all of it before... well, even if I haven't I'll learn what I need soon enough anyways. Plus I doubt anyone'll miss me much. So shall we?" I shrugged and he took it as a yes. I was surprised how unnoticed we really were when we left to outside, it was still fairly bright thanks to summer so we could still see around without any lights.   
"Oh and you said before.. Before I got back to the table one of my students daughters asked me over to her table for a moment and told me something, her friend Mayor something told me your name..." "Kandy." "Yes that's her I think.. Oh, Marcus! What are you doing out here? Shouldn't you be taking notes or ogling over Peterman's wonderful discoveries about our wonderful species history inside!"   
I only just noticed Marcus pacing around and the look he shot Bob made me blink twice, that was utter hatred on that face. I decided to stand back, I really didn't want any of that coming towards me, and being the size of the twelve year old I am and him being a full grown man really didn't boost my confidence. But Marcus seemed to gain his composure back after a sigh and he stood looking at Bob, a good head taller than himself. I only just realised then how tall Bob actually was, Marcus was a good 6ft something himself meaning Bob was a giant. Marcus also chose this moment to notice me, "Who's that?"   
"Oh yes, you aren't introduced are you? This is Damon, Damon uh, Ran-"   
"Rannoch."   
"Yes that's it, Damon Rannoch meet Professor Julian Marcus and vice versa." I nodded slightly and forced a smile, it wasn't much returned. "Oh. You're that boy I saw standing near the table earlier." Shifting my feet awkwardly I nodded again, "Yeah..."   
"Is there a reason why he's here?" Marcus grumbled to Bob. "Oh yes, I forgot. Yes there is Marcus, I just need to ask this nice young boy first," and Bob looked at me again, "Damon, do you mind if I have a look at your sketchbook you have? I've been told you have some pictures in it that I might find interesting, of course you don't have to if you don't want to." First thought into my mind was, 'does this guy ever stop smiling?' but I said, "Uh, ok... " then it actually clicked as to what he wanted to look at. Why it didn't hit me straight away was beyond me, he wanted to look at the pictures of the Mew I'd drawn. I quickly pulled my pack off my back and took out the sketch book, "Uh, can you just wait a moment I need to find the right pages...?" I tried to make it sound convincing but I don't think it totally blew over, yet Bob still nodded and Marcus just gave us both an odd look, I didn't really need to check the pages, I know almost every page of my sketchbooks, I just needed to change a couple of things, I don't think it'd be right if they saw everything I'd written down in relation to the Demon Mew. I couldn't put it all on that it's just something from my mind, anyway, if I said that, I'd even say I had a rather unstable mind.  
It didn't take long, all I had to do was cover a few things and rearrange some of the pages a little, "Here, I think this is what you want to look at right? It's only that and the next couple of pages..." I mumbled as I passed it over to Bob, Marcus looking keenly over his shoulder, eyes opening wide in surprise as he glanced over some of the pictures.   
I shifted my weight from foot to foot more than a couple of times as I waited to see what either of them would say, Marcus kept pointing past Bob at different things as they looked over the pages of sketches, I wasn't sure what they were going to say and I was just as sure as to if I really wanted to know...  
"Well, this is fascinating, where did you get your reference for these pictures Damon?" Bob finally said as he passed the sketchbook to Marcus as he was still marvelling over a couple of things. "Oh, well, uh..," I really should of thought this out.. "Well, I heard this story a while ago.. then I saw this picture somewhere of a Mew and a couple of other things and I got the ideas for it I guess..."   
"Well they are most excellent, I haven't seen any pictures that depict a Demon Mew so well. Most will get maybe one or two aspect right, but you seem to of gotten most of them down pat." Now I was going somewhat red as Marcus mumbled something to Bob and he nodded. "Damon, would you mind if we took this for a while? Just to scan the pictures for my research."   
"No!" was the automatic thing out of my mouth and I nearly lunged forwards to grab the book before I got a grip and held myself back. Bob seemed to be a little taken aback though Marcus just raised an eyebrow and started leafing through a few of the other pages of my book, that got me moving and I snatched it out of his hands. "I mean, uh.. only if I come as well.." I'd just done a wonderful job of embarrassing myself, prize to me.   
Both Bob and Marcus grinned, though I can't help but say I liked Bob's better, "Well good, that works just fine, you only had to say. We can do it in one of the spare rooms no doubt Marcus? He should have the equipment we need and I'm sure no one will mind if we borrow a few things from the off room." The glint in Bob's eye didn't help my confidence, but the fact I knew I had Are'ea with me, plus my ability I was fairly sure in myself so I followed along clutching my sketchbook rather tightly.  
  
  
  
Both Marcus and Bob said it wouldn't take long and it didn't. We were done in no time at all, even with the extra fifteen minutes it took for Marcus to fix the computer system after Bob made it nearly crash. At least in that time I had been given to make sure that I'd gotten rid of everything that'd make it obvious that what I had said earlier wasn't true. My fingers kept nervously going to Are'ea's Pokéball as I waited.   
Marcus had just started packing up when Kandy and some guy suddenly burst into the room, it took a surprisingly long time for them to actually notice someone was in the room and in that time I'd discovered a rather large ink stain over the desk top. When they did finally notice Kandy went an extremely bright shade of scarlet and the guy seemed to of realised something urgent needed his attention and sprinted out of the room. I blinked and looked around as Marcus coughed and pulled out a disk and passed it to Bob. Kandy getting over her embarrassment quickly took up interest in what we were doing voicing the obvious question, "What are you three doing in here?"   
Marcus was making a big point of not looking at Kandy herself but answered none the less, "Just scanning in some of this young mans pictures from his book." She raised an eyebrow and looked in my direction of which I looked away, I couldn't get the picture of what she'd been doing a moment ago out of my head and that ink stain was just so interesting, cough.   
"Uh well, me and Marcus really should be getting back, they'll be missing us by now," Bob grinned and Marcus got up and out of the room so fast that I didn't realise that he had actually left for a moment. But Bob stayed behind a moment to have an extra word with me, "Damon, is there a way I could contact you? Because I would like to discuss these pictures of yours a little, I'm sure you could help explain things better than I could actually figure out myself."   
"Uh..," no one had ever wanted to contact me before, I didn't have a phone or anything and I did make a rather large habit of keeping away from people, but a thought struck me, "Just send something to look out for Are'ea, I'll get the message and make sure to contact you as soon as possible." I smiled and he nodded finally exiting the room after Marcus and leaving me alone with Kandy as she looked at me oddly.   
"What?" I mumbled.  
"What do you mean 'what'? What were you doing talking to those two? Everyone who's anyone knows that Professor Brytanical is a weirdo and that Professor Marcus is nearly as bad."   
"Well, what were you doing that was just so entertaining that you couldn't see past a foot in front of your face when you entered the room?" I retorted back, how was I meant to know who to talk to and who not to? It's not like as if she'd helped me in any way since arriving, unless you call being gandered at 'helping'.   
She went bright red but didn't say anything towards my comment, "Well anyone with any sense wouldn't be caught talking with those two, everyone knows that you go to Professor Peterman for the real answers. As if pokemon are smart enough to have created anything as clever as what people have!" I just shrugged and started towards the door.  
"Hey! Where are you going now?"  
"Well obviously for starters out of this room, then I'd say out of this house and hopefully as soon as possible, as far away from this spot and you as possible," I smirked and didn't look back, didn't really look forwards either and went "Slam!" into someone running in my direction. Which sent me and the other person to the floor. As I shook my head and tried to regain my senses while insulting the person at the same time I tried to focus on what I'd hit exactly. They shouted first and it wasn't what I would of expected, "YOU!"   
Then I realised who I hit, the colour drained from my face and I was on my feet as fast as possible, but I couldn't move fast enough and the other person had tackled me back to the floor, he was five years older than me, what did I expect? Sitting on my back so I couldn't get up and holding my arms on my back he sneered down at me, "I must say you're the last person I'd expect at this sort of place. Bit intellectual for someone like you isn't it?"   
"I'm smarter than you could ever hope to be bonehead.... ARGH!" Not a good reply when someone can rip your arm back.   
"What are you doing Antoni? Get off of him!"   
That was Kandy this was Antoni's response, "I'm teaching the little pipsqueak here he should learn to look where he's going, isn't that obvious Kandy?" "Grow up Antoni and I can't help but doubt you can teach someone to look where they're going when all they can see is the floor," she didn't honestly sound all that impressed and his sweet tone at the end for her name didn't exactly help. "Just get off of him Antoni," and yay for me he did, if a little reluctant and that shown more so by him pulling me up by my arm in an extremely awkward manner that totally felt like he was ripping my arm out of its socket.   
Rubbing my arm and glaring at Antoni I had all the mind to leave but doubted it'd make me look much better, I would of preferred to of just left already, but now if Kandy asked me to stay I'd have Antoni bullying me and I couldn't exactly leave, but staying wouldn't get much of a better result. I needed to leave, I wanted to leave, I totally did not in any way want to be there. Kandy looked at me then to Antoni, "So what's up between you two? You've obviously met before or you wouldn't of shouted 'You!' like a moron." Antoni scowled and mumbled a reply that even I didn't hear and I wasn't more than a couple of feet from him. "What Antoni?" Kandy raised her voice a little louder.   
"Well... this little pipsqueak here did something and well.. Why should I have to tell you?!" with that Antoni rounded on his heels and skulked off continuing to mumbles various obscenities under his breath. Kandy blinked and looked at me questioningly, I shrugged in what I hoped was a 'I don't have a clue' sort of manner and looked elsewhere. She sighed and started dragging me in the opposite direction to where Antoni had just gone, also away from the party thing. "Uh, Kandy.. where are we going?" But she ignored me and until I could fight her off properly I was dragged until we were at the other side of the house and outside once more, this time at seemed to the main entrance.   
"Ok, fine, you want to leave, you can now. 'I' need to get back to my friends and everything, thank you for helping me earlier, nice to meet you, farewell." Now I was shocked, "Hey, what's suddenly shot up your rear end?" That made her pause just before disappearing back inside and she turned on her heels and bore down on me a finger hard into my chest. "You. You and, and, I don't know, just you in general, you're weird, you're short, you think way too much of yourself and probably a whole heap of other things, but like I said, I need to get back and I really can't be bothered wasting my time explaining myself to you!" I just blinked and took a step back, "Uh ok...Though to say, you're not one to speak so much if you're calling me weird, your mood swings are unbelievable, you're friendly as one moment and then the next you're a Gyarados on rampage. Everyone has their own faults. And I haven't even done anything!"   
"Well... well! Oh shit. Damn you, damn, damn, damn," then she started whining and sat down hard on the pavement, this just made me awkward and wondering what the hell was up with her. "Are, are you ok?"   
"Do I LOOK ok to you?!" she yelled at me and I jumped back, "Fine, fine, no need to yell, it's the normal thing to say you know, sorry to offend you.."   
"Oh, no, sorry myself, it's not your fault.... it's just like... oh never mind you don't want to hear it anyway...." Now I couldn't help but think I was meant to mind, so I sat down next to her feeling a little uncomfortable, "Uh, come on, what's wrong with you? Aside from the obvious mental deficiencies..." She wasn't that impressed with my joke but smiled a little anyway then went gushing at me about a whole heap of problems that had just come up recently. Now this totally wasn't what I had expected and she totally blew me over as she went on and on about this and that. For the most I just sat and listened, I don't think I was meant to say anything so I didn't.   
It was dark by the time she stopped speaking and the only reason that I saw that she actually did stop was that people could he heard approaching. Nearly the exact moment we heard the voices she'd picked herself up and pulled herself totally together. I just sat and blinked as she rushed off back inside leaving me there thinking some what to myself. Very impulsive type of person.   
I looked around and watched as a large amount of people started flooding out of the door. Obviously whatever had been happening still inside had finished and people weren't much in mind to stay any longer. So I took the chance to get up and leave myself, I really didn't wish to meet Antoni again, especially with no one around that was going to stand up for me. Plus, by now he'd have gotten some friends together, not a reassuring thought.   
  
********************************************* 


	5. 5

Other thoughts started up buzzing about in my head and I went silent for a while thinking once more. I really wanted to at least see that Marowak that Bryce had owned. But there was no chance now that I could see it, it belonged to Antoni now and I couldn't go near him on my own and I'd look stupid asking to see the pokemon for no apparent reason. And it's not like as if I could explain that it had looked at me oddly and that's why I wanted to 'talk' to it, not just see it. Argh, it was annoying. I was thinking over various ways I might be able to get Antoni to show me the pokemon but nothing would give me the opportunity to speak to it like I wanted. Sighing I was about to give up when I suddenly let my mind go blank at a sound from outside the door and I turned my head to see if Kandy had come back yet, but it wasn't her, it was one of the other rooms and someone leaving that.   
Suddenly it struck me and I had a plan.   
  
************************************* woooo, a plan, blah blah, you know I've been writing this almost totally between 1 and 6am? just a lovely fact I'm deciding to share for no particular reason ^.^; More conversations! Look! and yeah.. You ain't gonna find out what happened between Antoni and Damon for a while as well so ner! Hehe, umm, that was longer than usual wasn't it? *shrugs* well me go on now! so yeah! *wavies* *********************************************************  
  
  
It didn't take long to talk it over with Are'ea despite the fact I kept freezing at the slightest sounds, Kandy should of been coming back soon as it was fairly dark now and I really didn't want her walking in with me talking to Are'ea. Especially with what we were talking about.   
It was only a couple of minutes actually after I'd stopped talking it over with Are'ea when Kandy walked into the room quietly. There was no light to turn on so she had to feel her way along the wall to the bedroom. She didn't bother coming over or speaking to me, probably thought I was asleep or something. The bedroom door clicked closed and I could hear her moving around inside but I'd already decided with Are'ea we would give it a good fifteen minutes before we moved. I wanted to make sure Kandy was asleep, though hopefully not everyone would be by the time I could do what I wanted.   
It was nerve racking those minutes as we waited, I'd already moved Are'ea off my lap and put her beside me, I needed her to be as drowsy as possible for this to work. I didn't really want to have to resort to using my Butterfree Powder, it'd costed me more than I bet it was worth.   
Finally she'd stopped moving around and making noises for ten minutes and I decided that was enough time and slowly and quietly got off the sofa, trying my best not to disrupt Are'ea too much where she dozed in a half and half state of sleep and awakeness. Lucky for me I'd dropped my stuff next to the sofa so all I had to do was lean over backwards to collect a couple of items I needed and stuffed them in my pockets before going back to Are'ea. Now this was going to be annoying, being as careful as I could possibly be, I picked up Are'ea from the sofa trying my hardest not to move her too much. Then I started walking even slower towards the bedroom door. It was a clear straight path to the door which I was most grateful, now was a problem if there was some sort of lock on the bedroom door because I did know there was one on the bathroom. But as I stretched out a hand and turned the knob of the door I didn't find any sort of resistance and still trying to hold Are'ea without really waking her fully up I opened the door as silently as possible.   
Kandy was asleep, I could hear her breathing softly and it was coming from the direction of the single bed, well that worked ok, that was closer to me than the double one and it also meant I wasn't going to have to figure out where she was actually sleeping on the bed. So I started to make my way over to her, now starting to have trouble with holding Are'ea still as my hands were shaking just a little. I was almost to Kandy when I suddenly stubbed my toe on something hard and swore rather loudly, that was not the least bit helpful. At least the rest of the way was perfectly fine and I didn't hit my toes on anything else. Finding the bed next to me I put Are'ea carefully down on it and bobbed down next to her so I could whisper, "Ok, remember that the powder is in my left pocket and your Pokéball is in the right, you know what to do right?" She nodded still half asleep and I smiled. Ok, now was the tricky part.   
I put my hands forwards and touched Are'ea's head. There was that single moment of nothingness then I suddenly felt extremely drowsy as Are'ea had been, the same effect would happen to Are'ea. There are a couple of complications with switching like this. When you switch minds the body's state still stays the same, so despite the fact you could be awake when switching with someone asleep you'd more than likely end up asleep on the other side like the other person had been and they'll end up the opposite and suddenly be awake.   
I could sense Are'ea dimly nearby shaking off her own sleepiness and getting her own bearings on the situation from a new perspective. But it didn't take her too long and I could feel my own hands picking me up gently and lifting me towards what I hopped was Kandy. A moment later and I could feel just dully my paws being moved and suddenly I was out of it.  
I knew it might take a few moments but I couldn't exactly judge how long it would take between the switch and I'd be awake again. The first thing I noticed though was something was rather close to me and as I blinked my eyes open slowly I realised my face was touching the face I had now. I yelped a little in surprise as Are'ea backed away with an expression I couldn't see as my eyes were still adjusting to the light within the room.   
I touched my lips lightly as I sat up in the bed and frowned in the direction I guessed Are'ea was in, that wasn't exactly what I'd meant by asking her to wake me up. But she seemed to be ignoring me now as I saw the flash of red light that indicated that she had recalled the Are'ea with Kandy's mind back into her Pokéball and I decided I'd ignore what'd just happened as well right now. I had something I still needed to do after all.   
Shaking my head I swung my legs out of the bed and realised I didn't have as much clothes on as I thought. I know I was blushing as I started to scramble about looking for some pants and a top or something and I hissed at Are'ea to help me. It didn't take long for me to put something on and looking at Are'ea I told her to stay, "I'll only be a short while, ok? And hopefully you'll actually have a new friend." She looked at me with concern on my face and I sighed, "I will be ok, Antoni doesn't know I can do this, he has no reason to think this is me." It was odd hearing my words in Kandy's voice and was a little disorientating. She was also taller than I've been used to and I kept having this feeling I was about to fall but Kandy's body had surprisingly good balance.   
It took me a couple of minutes of hitting walls and my knees on things before I actually got back to the door that led me out of our room and finally found myself back on the balcony thing looking down at the large main room. I grinned as I noticed someone was still in there sitting next to the fire. "Oh shit, I forgot it," I muttered to myself and was turning around to go back into my room when the person who was still awake noticed me, "You decided to stay up then Kandy?" I looked back quickly and grinned in what I hoped was a Kandy grin, "Oh uh, yeah. Just give me a min and I'll be back, I forgot something." I couldn't see Antoni's face but he shrugged and went back to doing whatever it was he was doing as I hurriedly opened the door again and went straight to my backpack, stumbling over a small coffee table and falling hard on my hands and knees with a loud, "OW" of complaint that got Are'ea out of the bedroom and looking around franticly and hissing a "Who is it?" Sighing and sitting up next to my bag and hoping I wasn't going to end up with too many bruises on Kandy before I got to give her back her body I mumbled a, "me Are'ea, it's ok, just go sit down again, I forgot my Pokéball." But Are'ea didn't move even as I collected what I'd forgotten and left again, I was pretty sure she was still standing in the bedroom door even as I closed the room door behind me.   
Sighing as I turned from looking back at Are'ea I glanced down at the main room and wondered why it had to be that I was using the end room and that I had to walk all the way around just to get downstairs. They could of at least had the decency to put another way down from here. As I walked around Antoni didn't look up until I was actually walking towards him. And then, just as I wasn't watching my step and tripped over a rug he spoke for the first time, "And I thought you had more grace than that Kandy." I went red as I stood up again and brushed off my clothes, now what would Kandy say? "Uh yeah, heh." That obviously wasn't it as Antoni raised an eyebrow but he just shook his head and smiled, "So you decided to come back down then?" I nodded, "Yep couldn't sleep, what about you?" I replied as I sat down reminding myself of how exactly it was Kandy sat and moved and held herself in general, it wouldn't work really well if I wasn't believable as Kandy, not that Antoni could prove it wasn't her, it's just I wanted to appear sincere and all. Antoni sighed and looked at the fire anyway, "Yeah, the same, too many things on my mind." "Oh! Like where we're going tomorrow?" I put on a big grin like Kandy would, that's a proper response Kandy would make I reassured myself. "Yeah.. that," that obviously wasn't all and I was pretty sure I knew what else he was thinking about, but Kandy didn't and me personally didn't want to push into it.   
"So uh..." how was I going to bring this up, the Pokéball with my disloyal pokemon was in my hand and I started spinning it around between my fingers idly. Antoni turned to look at me and noticed the Pokéball, "What's that?" I caught the Pokéball in the palm of my hand and the first thing in my head came out my mouth, "Oh, this? It's a Persian I don't especially want and looking to trade with someone." Grinning I looked up at him, "Got anyone that'd want a Persian and willing to trade something for it?" Antoni went into thought for a moment before looking at me, "Hmm.... well, you asked Bryce?" the look that must of crossed my face before I could think made Antoni laugh and smile at me, "Heh, yeah I could understand that," he shifted his weight around a little in his chair and unclipped a couple of things from his belt. "Well, I only have these three on me at the moment, and by the fact you've come down here with that I'd be under the impression you wanted to trade something with me?" I blushed slightly and forced an awkward giggle, I don't exactly giggle much personally and Kandy does it way too much when talking to people. "Was there anything in mind you wanted Kandy?" it took me a second before it hit me he was talking to me, "Oh, uh ye- no, not really..." Antoni raised a brow and shook his head, "Well I have a Primeape," I shook my head and he smiled, "Yeah I know you have a Mankey. This one you can't have as it's my Umbreon," he put away those two pokeballs and held the last in his hand, "That leaves Bryce's Marowak.." the way he said that made it sound like he wasn't the most impressed with that. "I probably shouldn't trade that, but-" he looked up and blinked a few times, "Uh, you want this then Kandy?" I sat back in my seat as I'd been leaning forwards and scratched my head, "Oh, no, no, if you can't trade it, it's ok." Antoni looked at me strangely then shook his head, "I'd have to go up to my room to get my other pokemon, if you want a look at those." Again I couldn't control the look on my face and Antoni laughed, "Ok, well if you really want this," he threw the shrunk Pokéball in the air and caught it, "there's a trade machine over there," indicating somewhere over my shoulder that forced me to turn around in my chair.   
I grinned and got up probably a little too soon, Antoni following a step behind me and I couldn't help but bounce a little in my steps. Antoni obviously found it a little weird as he chose to walk a short distance away from me, "You're excited aren't you?" I stumbled in my steps, "Uh, oh, sorry. Just been wanting to get rid of the Persian for a while, taking up room in my line up and all." I flashed a grin at him a moment and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah well, don't be too excited, this pokemon hardly listens to any orders. Though it is strong and fast and is fairly high levelled." "Well I like a strong pokemon!" which was true of Kandy, none of her pokemon were in the least bit weak, "and a challenge is always good!"   
Antoni shrugged, "Well just don't tell Bryce that I traded it with you. We were meant to trade back once we got here, but Bryce hasn't given any inclination that he wants to so I doubt we will." He sighed a little then looked at me and smiled, "Well, I can say now I'll probably end up on the better side of this deal now," I grinned back at him, "Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that, this Persian doesn't do much more than sit on its backside from the moment it's let out of its Pokéball." Antoni shrugged again, "Well, I'll have to change that wont I?" With that he placed his Pokéball on the left side of the trade machine and I placed my Persian's on the right. It didn't take more than a moment as I watched the small screen that showed the pokemon switching pokeballs. I waited for another second before picking up my new Marowak more than a little pleased with myself, this had gone easier than I thought. Turning to look at Antoni as he pocketed the Persian I couldn't help but grin, now I had the somewhat problem of leaving without raising too much suspicion. But I really shouldn't of worried. Antoni looked back up at me with an expression on his face I couldn't really read and fixed the problem by saying, "Well, we should be going to sleep, I talked to the lady earlier and she said that we'd be able to fly tomorrow as long as we got up early..." I nodded and clapped my hands, "Great! So I'll see you tomorrow then and everything right?" Antoni nodded and started to walk towards the stairs, me not really wanting to but knowing Kandy would of, went into step next to him and started babbling some about the city, at least I tried to, like I've said I never really paid much attention to Kandy when she was talking about it to Bryce. I doubt it really would of mattered what I was saying though as Antoni was deep in thought as I spoke and didn't actually say anything himself until he stopped outside his room door. "I'll see you tomorrow Kandy and remember, try not to tell Bryce that I traded his pokemon ok? He probably wouldn't actually care that much.. but I dunno," he shrugged and went into his room leaving me waving a goodbye.   
Still not really believing my luck I quickly hurried back to my room and went inside. Startling Are'ea who'd been sitting next to it as I basically tripped over her. Cursing I picked myself up again and glared at Are'ea, "I told you to wait in the bedroom... blah, is everything ok?" She made a sound that I took as a yes and got myself back onto my feet and helped her up. "Kandy's gonna wake up tomorrow wondering where all these bruises I've gotten her came from, damn it." Are'ea was looking at me and I sighed, "It's not your fault don't worry, come on just hurry up, we need to put things back how they were."   
Dragging Are'ea along with me into the bedroom I told her to release the still sleeping Kandy onto the bed once I'd gotten in. "Wake me up once we've switched ok?" she nodded with a quiet 'yes' and I put my hands to the real Are'ea's head and my mind was suddenly shut down as I became asleep. Another moment and I was being roughly shaken awake again and could hear some startled sounds from Kandy, cursing again this time in Vulpix I looked up at Are'ea and she put her hands to my head and we switched. Without wanting to freak out Kandy any more my hand quickly went straight into my left pocket and grabbed some of the Butterfree sleeping powder and sprinkled it over Kandy, she made some sounds that sounded like half words and started snoring. Stifling laughter I scooped up Are'ea and made my way as quickly as possible out of the bedroom and back to the little living room place. Dropping Are'ea onto the sofa I suddenly realised I was a lot tireder than I had thought and the moment I sat down on the sofa my eyelids had shut and I was out of it.   
  
************ that ended shitty and I should of finished it in one sitting instead of three x.X; blah, *wavies* *************  
  
I woke up with a loud thump as my head then the rest of my body hit the floor.   
Mumbling I looked up to see Kandy opening her door and looking in my direction somewhat worried before she actually noticed me then started giggling, "Have a nice trip then?" Turning red I scrambled to get up and at the sound of an extremely high pitched yelp I realised I'd landed on Are'ea having pushed her off when I fell off the sofa and she was not enjoying the experience in the least. Picking Are'ea up the scruff she finally calmed down and gave me a dirty look. Sighing I put her down on the sofa where she promptly walked up to the other end and sat down with her back to me and watched out the window the dawning day over the mountains.   
Kandy decided to come over to me now, "Hey, this is yours isn't it? 'Cause I found it in my room this morning," and she gave me a questioning look as she showed me the Marowak's Pokéball. I scratched my head and tried to think of how exactly to word what I wanted to say, "Uh, yeah well, that's mine. Umm... I how'd it get into your room? Because I'm sure I had it with my stuff..." and I glanced around a little, Are'ea still looking out the window pinned her ears back and made a rather rude comment that I knew I was meant to hear. Kandy was still looking at me oddly but shrugged it off and replaced it with a smile as she lightly tossed the Pokéball towards me, "Well next time keep a better eye on it wont you?" With that she started back to the bedroom and I called her back, "Oh, we can go on the flight as soon as we're ready, it's clear enough to fly and yeah.." Kandy grinned and clapped her hands, "Oh great!" and once more she went to leave, turning on her heels just before closing the door, "How did you know?" she asked tilting her head a little. "The lady came by earlier," I lied. She raised a brow, "Really? You wake up earlier or something? 'Cause that fall made me think you'd just woken up" and grinned. I went red again, "Yeah, she came by earlier... I was just laying down for a while and fell off.." "Oh well. You're ok now right? Well anyways, I'll be ready in twenty minutes and we can go see Bryce and Antoni," and she closed the door.   
Looking at the Marowak's Pokéball now in my hand I hit myself with the other, "That was stupid, totally forgetting about this... blah." I turned my gaze back over to Are'ea who still had her back to me, "You know you don't have to act like that.." but she continued to ignore me and I took the free time I had to pack my few things up and begin to worry again about the upcoming Pidgeot flight. I had a good five minutes to do this before Kandy appeared again with her things and went straight for the door, "I'll go tell Bryce an Antoni we're ready and we can go." She grinned and was gone before I could say anything.   
Looking at Are'ea who'd finally decided I was worth talking to again I just sat rather dumbfounded. My stomach was doing backflips and I really was not looking forwards to what was going to be happening soon. Are'ea could sense my distress an attempted a couple of words of comfort but it didn't help. Are'ea was going to have to go in her Pokéball while I was flying, I wasn't willing to even come close to the possibility where she'd fall off the Pidgeot, I really didn't want to think about it either.   
Kandy knocked on the door fifteen minutes later, "Come on, we're leaving now," and she came in, grabbed her backpack and had left by the time I'd gotten up and taken one step. "Are'ea coming?" she nodded and hopped after me as I walked to the door and grabbing the key left the room just to see Kandy dragging Bryce around the corner to the entrance of the lodge. Kandy waved once in my direction before disappearing from view and I went about locking the door to the room.   
I was turning around when suddenly I found my back hard against the wall and my feet not touching the ground, also something was rather hard against my neck. Choking I looked dead on into some very angry looking eyes, Antoni growled at me, "Ok, now look here. You may have Kandy and Bryce fooled as to who the hell you are but I know who you are and there's nothing you can do to change this. For the moment I'm not going to tell anyone your secret as I really would prefer not to hurt Kandy but if you make even one single slip up I'm going to tell anyone who'll hear about what the hell you really are and what you'd do." He paused but didn't let me go or stop glaring at me, I couldn't exactly say anything in my position and really I doubted there'd be anything he'd believe if I said anyway, I just nodded my head a little.   
"Hey! Are you two coming or not?" came Kandy's voice from the entrance to the main room and I found the floor beneath my feet again. Antoni shot a last glare at me before starting off along the balcony and down the stairs to Kandy leaving me standing there and rubbing my neck. "Damon come on! Hurry up!" Looking towards Kandy I gave a weak smile and started off as well, Are'ea continuing at my feet. She hadn't done anything and I knew she wouldn't, she wont attack Antoni, not for any reason.   
  
* * *  
  
Outside was FREEZING.   
Especially when you compared it to the fire heated rooms of the lodge. I pulled my coat as tightly around me as possible trying to keep the cold out but it really didn't help much. Bryce was talking to a middle aged man next to a large barn like structure rather enthusiastically and I guessed that was where the Pidgeot were kept.   
Kandy suddenly grabbed one of my arms and started dragging me towards the barn thing, "Come on Damon, you just have GOT to see the Pidgeot, they are so totally cool. And they're white just like Bryce said!" That was all I heard her say before I started blocking her out, I really didn't want to listen to her talking about Pidgeots and flying and anything to do with either of those two subjects.   
We went through a small side door and into the barn, Kandy continuing to drag me. We stopped dead and Kandy let me go and I took a half step back again. Along every wall and in the rafters were row upon row of nests, and within each nest was a giant white bird. The higher up you went the smaller they got and I realised for the first time there wasn't only Pidgeot. It's pre-evolutions were as well, well I guess it was kinda a nah duh, you had to get the Pidgeot from somewhere. In front of us were five of the giant white birds not really doing much more than standing there as if waiting for something. Kandy rushed up to the nearest one squealing in a high pitched voice and went about ruffling the Pidgeot's feathers in a friendly manner that the bird obviously enjoyed as it closed its eyes and made a quiet cooing noise. Personally I wasn't really wanting to go up to these birds that were at least seven and a half feet tall for the biggest one. The talons and beaks on each of them looked more than able to rip me in half without the least bit of trouble. So I took the time to just stand back and watch Kandy as she fussed over each of the birds in turns.   
From behind me Antoni, Bryce and the man I guess owned the birds came in. The man moving over to the large barn doors and going about opening them with Antoni while Bryce did just what I was doing and stood back watching Kandy with the birds. I suddenly got the distinct impression that he wasn't actually looking forwards to this flight anymore than I was despite all his boasting about it. He'd already claimed to be a 'tough' type trainer, and that meant he was more into the down to earth pokemon, I wondered if he'd even been in the air before.   
A rush of air from behind me as a draft flooded in from the now open doors sent up a chorus of complaints from most of the feathered occupants of the barn that was nearly at a deafening tone and I had to put my hands over my ears. As a matter of fact the man was the only one who didn't and he laughed at the four of us as each of us slowly took our hands away from our ears, "Despite all their feathers and that extra layer of fat these birds still don't like the cold do they?" he continued to laugh. I shook myself as I watched him walk over to one of the largest birds that were out and run a finger under its beak that got a happy ruffle of feathers from the Pidgeot. "Excuse me Miss, but if you'll just stand over there with your friends a moment while I harness up these Pidgeot then you'll be ready to go," he smiled at Kandy and she rather reluctantly hopped back over towards me and Bryce. Antoni continued to stand over near the barn doors while we watched the man put on the Pidgeot's riding gear, mostly just a sort of saddle type of thing that kept your legs in place, there didn't seem so far to be anywhere we were expected to hold onto with our arms except around their necks. This didn't help the backflips going on in my stomach. At least one thing that was a plus while we were watching, the man did a sort of talk on the Pidgeot and showed us a couple of helpful tricks so as to get on the birds better sides. Not that Kandy hadn't already done a good job of that and I doubted quiet a lot she needed any more help with that.   
Well a couple of the things I learnt; most of the Pidgeot at the Pidgeot Flight Centre originally came from the wild lower down in the mountains when they were either Pidgeotto or Pidgey. Pidgey were the preferred evolutionary stage to be captured at as they could be trained from an earlier age and took less time to teach what to do and properly. Where as the Pidgeotto, while older and not usually needing as much training to become Pidgeot usually came out to be smaller than those caught as Pidgey when they did become fully evolved. Also they had a larger habit of not obeying as, despite the fact they were smaller than the evolved Pidgeotto at the centre they were still larger than a normal Pidgeotto. They never caught full grown Pidgeot as for starters, they were nearly impossible to catch as they're white feathers camouflaged them perfectly with their surroundings and when found they would either speed off at an unmatchable pace or attacked in such a manner that you would be lucky to survive. Plus a fully evolved Pidgeot took unprofitable amounts of time to train and had to be kept away from the other birds as they'd attack each other. So they didn't use wild mountain Pidgeot.   
The Pidgey line were almost completely white, except for the Pidgey themselves that were mostly a slate grey and sometimes muddy browns with white. Pidgeotto were half and half greys and whites and then Pidgeot's were a solid white.   
Mountain Pidgey were actually smaller and fatter than the normal but everything else was larger though still held a little of the extra fat. Mostly because of the same reason a Dewgong has an extra layer of fat beneath its fur, to help keep it warm in the sub-zero temperatures that were common here up on the higher peaks of the mountains. Also they have an extra layer of feathers below the primary ones just like a Farfetch'd to keep the water and snow away from their skin as much as possible. This down was actually also farmed from the Pidgey and Pidgeotto as they grew up and were in training to become Flight Pidgeot to get some sort of earnings out of them.   
The mountain variation of Pidgey and its evo's only were found in the mountains, kinda duh type of thing, and the higher up you went the higher in the evolution chain you went. Its extremely unlikely you'll find a Pidgey at the highest peaks just as it's extremely unlikely to find a white mountain Pidgeot down where everything is green. So yeah.  
The Pidgeot Flight Center had been around for more than fifteen generations, so it'd been there a really long time, though the operation had gotten bigger in the last fifty years or so with the growth of the mountain great trainer city and there being a larger need of people to get to and from there. But things were still basically the same as they had always been, the basic method and design for everything was nearly exactly the same as it had been when it had all started.   
There was also quiet a large amount of other things that I can't quiet remember but for some reason those ones there stood out the most for me.   
Now ready the man who's name turned out to be Tom, led the Pidgeot out in a straight line outside of the barn and lined them up a good couple of meters apart from each other in a row ready to be mounted. Kandy, Bryce, Antoni and me all followed suite and stood back a little from Tom and his pokemon waiting to be told what to do next. Tom looked at each of us and sized us up before appointing a bird to each of us. Lucky me got the smallest one, though this still wasn't much of a consolation as it was still more than a couple of feet taller than me.   
After walking up to and giving my Pidgeot a short pat on the neck I looked at the saddle strapped to the back it's then turned around to watch as Tom showed Bryce, who was next to me, how to mount onto the Pidgeot's back. Bryce was doing worse than me I'd say as he was continuing to stand well away from the bird while I'd already said hello to my Pidgeot. I snickered under my breath as Tom had to coax Bryce to even come near the Pidgeot before waiting another ten minutes before he'd even touch the bird. Tom sighed and was about to go and help Kandy with something when a comment from Antoni boosted Bryce's courage and Tom finally got to get Bryce onto the Pidgeot's back and strapped on. Tom went over to Kandy to help her strap in her legs and I decided it was time I actually got onto my rides back as everyone else except Tom had already got on theirs.   
I looked at my Pidgeot and wondered if I could get a boost from anywhere to help me actually get my leg over the birds back so I could sit on it, but as I looked around I didn't see anything nearby. The Pidgeot watching me with its saucer sized pale blue eyes seemed to get the idea I was having trouble with getting on and lowered its body down onto the ground and pulled its wing back so I could get on easily. Grinning and saying my thanks to the giant bird I swung my leg over its back and sat myself back in the saddle and slipped my feet into the foot rests or whatever they were. The saddles were situated so you sat with your legs on their shoulders and wrapped around their lower neck to their chests and you sat between their wings. Arms were obviously meant to go around their necks as there wasn't anywhere else for them to go.   
It was surprisingly comfortable sitting on the Pidgeot's back and it was warmer than you'd think from just looking at them, their feathers were also extremely soft and I felt like if I had a bed made of the stuff I'd never want to leave it. I looked over at Bryce and he still seemed extremely uneasy with sitting on the Pidgeot's back and the Pidgeot seemed to be able to tell as it was continuing to move from foot to foot and fluttering its wings to make Bryce even more stressed about his situation. Tom noticed this and suddenly came running over from Antoni where he'd been tightening a strap holding the saddle to Antoni's Pidgeot's chest and started undoing Bryce's legs from their restraints. A moment later and he'd pulled Bryce off the Pidgeot and was moving him to the last one that didn't have anyone on it. This was the largest of all the birds but I couldn't also help but think the oldest as well as it was standing there extremely docile and its eyes didn't have the same bright shine of the others. Though there was something about the Pidgeot that made you think it wasn't the least bit weak. Bryce was quickly seated on the new bird as Tom said some quiet words to him and he visibly relaxed as he let Tom do up the straps on his legs.   
Kandy and Antoni were talking to each other at the other end of the line and I got to sit and think to myself and give my Pidgeot some pats as I waited for us to be ready to go. I idly wondered for a moment if Are'ea would of liked to of joined the ride but I couldn't help but seriously doubt it, plus I had nowhere to put her while we flew. My mind drifted away from Are'ea as a young girl came running up to us from somewhere inside the bird barn with a helmet in hand and went about checking each of the Pidgeot's in turn and making sure that everything was done up properly, even after Tom did most of them. I didn't get to hear what Kandy, Antoni, Tom and the girl said up the other end before the girl came up to me last of all and completely strapped my legs in. I said a half hello and she didn't say anything before moving to the Pidgeot that Bryce had originally been on and jumped on its back, leaning over the side to do up the legs straps for herself. "Hey, I thought Tom was taking us.." The girl suddenly looked up at me with a stern look on her face that reminded me of the woman from the lodge, "Weren't you listening? Dad can't take you today, he has to wait until my brother comes back with a group from the city. Plus, I want to get some things AND I'm a better flier than him and we're probably going to be getting into snow near the end of the flight," she said all of this in a matter of fact tone and I just stared at her blankly.   
The girl sat up straight in her Pidgeot's saddle, the bird of which had turned as docile and calm as the one Bryce was now ridding, and raised her voice, "Ok. Now everyone LISTEN UP. On the left of your saddle is a small yellow whistle attached to some rope, if you get into any sort of trouble or become lost blow three times on the whistle. Visibility isn't always the best higher up in the mountains and this is the easiest way to find one of you. Also, trust the Pidgeot, they've done this hundreds of times and know where they're going. A couple of other things I must add as well. The Pidgeot may sometimes break into high speed dashes, this is normal and nothing to be frightened about. Also, while flying through the clouds you may find your Pidgeot doing a sudden turn as a mountain top or rock ledge appears as if out of nowhere. Again don't be scared, these Pidgeot have done this multiple times before and know what they are doing. Last thing. Free flying and showing off is allowed but I wont be held responsible for anyone falling off of their Pidgeot," with that she grabbed the helmet that'd been resting on her Pidgeot's head and put it on, doing up the buckle on the bottom and I noticed that the helmet covered her ears and I wondered idly if she'd be able to hear me if I had to use that whistle for any reason. She gave her Pidgeot a light kick in its sides and it started moving forwards, its wings gradually spreading out as it moved closer to the edge of the cliff that wasn't too far ahead of us. "Now everyone hold onto their Pidgeot's neck tightly, and it doesn't matter how tightly you hold on, unless you're as strong as a Machamp there isn't a single possibility that you'll choke these birds. ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!" and her Pidgeot disappeared off the edge of the cliff a second later with her screaming as she went, only for the Pidgeot to be seen swooping up into view a couple of moments later, its massive wingspan visible as it glided on an air current up and above us.   
Next went me as my Pidgeot started walking towards the edge of the cliff, its wings spreading out on either side of me and its body. I can't say it was a comfortable ride for that short amount of time as the Pidgeot's body lurched from side to side. But it didn't last long and I was suddenly plunging downwards with my arms wrapped extremely tightly around the birds neck as I screamed my head off even after an updraught caught my ride and sent it sailing straight back up into the air soaring.   
I turned my head around at the sound of Kandy screaming with delight after Antoni as her Pidgeot did the exact same thing mine and Antoni's had. Then there was Bryce who was ghost white as his older Pidgeot went running off the edge of the cliff and plummeted downwards before catching an updraught and gliding back up to where the rest of us were circling above the Pidgeot Flight Centre and Lodge.   
The girl suddenly swooped down towards Tom who was still standing outside and watching us and each of the Pidgeot in order went straight after the first one. I heard the girl scream a "Goodbye Dad!" and Tom reply, "Have a nice flight Lisa!" before I was soaring once more upwards and towards the mountains on our way to the mountain city.  
  
  
************************ started shitty, didn't get much better x.x; *wavies* ***************************************************  
  
  
Flying was more enjoyable than I ever thought possible.   
At least for the first two or three hours, then it got fairly dull and aside from the occasional burst of speed from my Pidgeot there wasn't anything really I hadn't seen already, or at least something similar.   
In the beginning it'd been funny to hear Bryce's cries of fear as he clutched to his Pidgeot for dear life when ever it did something unexpectedly, though after the first couple of times of this it started getting into a habit of making a clicking noise to give Bryce warning before it did anything suddenly. That usually had Bryce closing his eyes tightly the moment his mount even started the sound. It was highly amusing.   
Kandy was the total opposite nearly, she was completely enjoying her ride and had even figured out how to get her Pidgeot to do loop-de-loops and barrel rolls and a whole heap of other fancy moves. This started up a competition between her and the Pidgeot owners daughter pretty early on in trying to out do each other. Of course Lisa could totally out do Kandy seeing as she had all the experience under her belt but Kandy still had her fairly hard pressed despite her advantage. That was fun to watch even after the first couple of hours as they didn't give up for more than ten or fifteen minutes before trying again.  
Antoni was utterly dull though. He stayed going in a straight line and only cried out in surprise the first couple of times his Pidgeot did something unexpected then he just got this highly concentrated expression on his face and he just flew along pretty much like me. Though I tried out a couple of loop-de-loops and barrel rolls myself now and then when my Pidgeot was willing.   
As we flew the order in which we were doing so continually changed of who was where, with Icey even being last a couple of times. I guessed seeing as the Pidgeot's knew where they were going anyway the order didn't really matter all that much as we were all going to get there anyway.   
It wasn't actually until the last hour and a half that we were really flying through the clouds. Yeah we'd gone through a couple already now and then previously, but that was now and then. Now it was more solid cloud with now and then a gap in between. This was when I realised why exactly Lisa had the helmet that covered her ears. My ears had already felt rather wind bashed from just normal flying now they were freezing as dewdrops continued to collect on my body all over and in my hair. Where it dribbled down over my ears, making them thoroughly frozen and numb fairly quickly. The Pidgeot was also collecting the dew but didn't seem to mind in the least, probably because most of it just rolled off its feathers in small streams.   
Also another thing with flying through the clouds was that you could hardly see in front of you and you had to trust more than anything that everyone else was nearby as opening your mouth to say anything usually resulted in a frozen and dry throat that was extremely uncomfortable to fly with. Even in the small gaps of cloudless sky, but occasionally you had to just to be certain there was actually someone nearby, though it took a couple of minutes before people usually replied someone always did. The other thing with flying in clouds was that things would suddenly appear out of nowhere, like an outcrop of rocks, a treetop or even what would start off as a large shadow then turn into another Pidgeot with rider atop that I felt like I was nearly going to crash into. But of course I never did, my Pidgeot was smart enough to dodge around anything that came in our way and could judge fairly well where I was sitting on its back and how much room I took up so as not to scrape my head or shoulders on anything.   
We'd left the Pidgeot Flight Center at no more than two hours after dawn and it was until late afternoon that we saw the first signs of the city. And the first was a large turret set atop a mountain summit just above the clouds that we had to fly around. There wasn't any movement inside or outside of the turret and I couldn't exactly see why anyone would even want to build one there, it's not like as if you'd be able to see much often with clouds being around the foot of it probably all the time. Plus, who'd waste time in trying to take over this sort of place when you had perfectly good flat land everywhere else. I shrugged though, to each their own, someone must of seen a point in building it at some time. We actually passed three more of these turrets at around the same height at different points as we approached closer to the city but each of them still showed no sign of life, or at least, nothing recent. Outside a couple of them were different forms of machinery and wood piles and other things but nothing seemed to of been moved in a long time.   
At last we came to a group of mountains that all peaked above the clouds in a wide arc that completed into a circle somewhere beyond my vision and we flew in between them in groups of ones and twos and started a lazy circle downwards around the perimeter of the circle of mountains. These were extremely large circles as from one side you couldn't see the other except as a fuzzy blur. Below us appeared the city after a while and I realised that it was surrounded by a large wall on every side like a giant fortress. I couldn't see much more than the city was a blur of white below me at the time so I went to look around at the countryside on all the sides around it and realised this was a huge valley made at low mountain levels and that around the edges at different points on the mountains surrounding were more of those turrets. This place was highly defended at some point for some reason. But I really still couldn't see what this place needed to be defended against, no one in their right mind would try and get to this place and want to conquer it. Unless of course maybe there was something really special about this place... I honestly couldn't think of what you'd find so high up in the mountains that someone would think so valuable.   
It was actually still another hour before I could even make out separate structures of stone within the city, and the first ones were some rather large structures built at specific places that were easily accessible from nearly everywhere else in the city. Though the two largest where pyramid like shapes, kind of reminding me of something like the Aztec pyramids, and those were positioned at opposite ends of the city then there were three slightly smaller ones in a triangle shape near the center, leaving a clearly visible path from the two larger ones to each other though. The center of the city was a huge plaza though and there were a couple of smaller ones about in different places as well and also four battle arenas, one in each corner of the city and those were also huge and each styled near completely different. As we got closer to the ground still I could see small bug sized people wondering about between the buildings and quiet often accompanied by some sort of pokemon, there were also visible people in the countryside as well but they were further away and even harder to see than the people below.   
A thought struck my mind and I found I felt like I was looking down at some sort of ancient city which had been here for centuries. And I couldn't help but bet it was, there was nothing built like this place anymore, with almost everything built with stone and with fortressed built around them and everything. I declared to myself this place was definitely cool and I was most pleased with the fact I'd actually decided to come, even having to put up with Bryce and Antoni up until this point was worth it. Something else struck my mind and I wondered how many people actually knew about this place, as I'd never heard of it before and I seriously doubted all that many people had. I think Kandy had said that earlier...   
Still it was another forty-five minutes before we actually touched down to the ground at one of the smaller plazas. But in that time I and the others got to have a good look at the city as we swooped around and around over the top of it. Near the end having to dodge other pokemon now and then as they flew about as well, but most of them moved out of the way of us which was good as I really didn't think a collision would be that much fun.   
  
  
************** I'm gonna stop it here ^.^; Mainly as I don't know what else to say and I want to goto bed and well... I can't be stuffed typing more now and it's easier just to stop the chapter! Anyway! They've arrived! and and... I can finish this soon, YAY!!! *runs around cheering at herself like an idiot* I might actually finish a pokemon for the first time ever! So totally YAY!!!!!!! *dances!* Hehe. Oh well, well anyways, I know how this finishes, I know a couple of things that need to happen before it finishes... Like the Antoni-Damon thing worked out for one, the Marowak, O, yay, I'll do that next if not then the one after *bounces about* hehe, Oh damn.. now, how do I... *scratches her head* Oh well, figure it out when it happens! Time to leave, no? Well, anyways, despite the fact I haven liked the last couple of chapters much, I do like my Mountain Pidge's and I think they cool, also the city is cool and helps me with something else... but that doesn't concern you, the person reading this, so ner =P hehe ^.~ *wavies now* BYEZ! 4 Now at least *wavies* ************************** 


	6. 6

I was actually right with the first one, Antoni's friend must of held him back because no one came after me. But I decided for the next while I wouldn't be leaving Are'ea on her own no matter what. Asking her later what they had actually wanted I got the answer of what I expected, mostly about the last time I had met Antoni. That was not a good experience for all of us. I'd been with an older friend at the time, someone older than Antoni himself. They'd both competed for something and Antoni had lost, let me just say he's not a happy looser. Afterwards a few unlucky coincidences happened and I eared myself someone who couldn't stand to look at me without sending a fist through my face. Sad thing being my friend had been more than close friends with Antoni, oh well, past's the past.   
After that encountered I'd decided to spend some time in a city. It'd be easier to find out if Bob wanted to see me again anyway. Plus, being with Kandy that short time had made me realise I was missing some sort of human interaction.   
So at the moment I had set up residence at a Pokemon Center thanks to the Nurse Joy. I'd stayed in the city for at least two weeks almost before anything happened that was even remotely interesting. I overheard a conversation between two junior trainers about a research lab set up by Silph Co. just on the outskirts of the city to the West. Some scientist people had just arrived a couple of days ago after a discovery had been made by some passing trainers about a hidden area of some kind that was accidentally discovered and they seemed to be really excited about something but had wanted to keep it away from the press as they hadn't wanted to overexcite anyone just yet. Being curious like most of the people who crowded around the young trainers to get as much info as possible I decided to go check it out myself.   
I was surprised somewhat by how easy it was to find the place, nearly everyone in the west part of the city seemed to know where the building was. I found out later this was because the old Gym used to be there before they decided to condemn it and build a newer one more to the center of the city. It only took me just over an hour to get to the Silph building and when I did I actually walked past it three times thinking it couldn't possibly be the right building. It was set up more like some sort of museum and someone had done a good job with the landscaping, trees and bushes everywhere, but all styled so it all looked nearly neat and orderly.   
I walked up to the entrance and looked in through one of the roof to floor window walls and declared to myself that this place definitely looked more like a museum than a scientists lab of some kind as past the corridor that I was looking down there were rooms with display cases filled with various objects with little name plaques and everything next to them. Though I couldn't read any of those from that distance.   
The only thing that actually did tell me that the place was a lab and not some sort of museum was some silver lettering on the glass doors next to me and along one of the corridor walls through the window. Shrugging I moved towards the front doors and found them opening happily enough for me and so I walked inside. Looking up I noticed the usual motion detector type things that open sliding doors at supermarkets and things. Well, this was a public building then, maybe this actually was a museum for all the different discoveries and things that the scientists made somewhere else in the center. Again I shrugged and just went about walking along the corridor until I could enter one of the rooms and started to look over the different items on display in their glass cases.   
For the most part I felt like I was getting your basic history lesson of the local area and nothing really caught my interest for longer than a moment or two. There were some interesting artefacts of pokemon idols about. Mostly your typical one of what most claim to be legendary pokemon. Things like Houou and the other elemental birds from the Orange Islands, the legendary dogs from Johto and other ones I'd heard about often enough.   
So I moved onto the next room and the next and the next, just scanning and glancing at this and that. As I was looking around I noticed that I hadn't seen a single other person so far, though I could bet someone had seen me as in each room there were numerous cameras keeping an eye on different things as you would at any place with old stuff in them. Though personally I don't know what you'd want with anything I'd already seen, nothing had looked to be of much value aside from the fact they were old.   
Wondering if I was actually going to see anything interesting I continued onto the next room and found myself going through a small dark passageway that opened up into a fairly large room through a beaded black and white curtain. I stopped dead as I looked around in wonder. Now this was interesting. Set up all over the walls of the room and hanging from the roof were great canvases of cloth and paper depicting different times in the past. More than half were of great battles between species and within them and less than a handful of them actually contained a human. The others were mostly of different ceremonies or certain pokemon during different achievements. What were left seemed to contain pictures of not exactly pokemon but different creatures, or pokemon that had been warped in some way, nearly every single one looked other worldly and it was sending Spinarak down my back.   
Aside from the pictures there were also glass cases containing much the same things like had been in the other rooms but with subtle differences, the sizes were different or the handles were in slightly different positions so they could be used for different shaped hands. There were also small and to scale models around the room of different pokemon, most of which looked at least slightly odd with either strange markings on them or totally different colourations to their scales, fur or feathers.  
I'd finally found something interesting and the different plaques to each artefact was worth at least trying to read and understand. There was a large amount of terms and words I'd never heard of before but I'd like to think I did fairly well. Most of the information was new to me, I'd never learnt about this sort of thing before or even thought it really possible. Even having switched minds with various pokemon I'd always thought that they were as a general thing fairly simple and nearly if not totally dependent on instincts more than anything else. But here these things were saying that they had had in certain areas of the world their own civilisations and religions and other sorts of things. A lot of it sounded a lot more interesting than what we had today. Like there was a large array of different sorts of gods and goddesses and lower creatures that weren't either normal pokemon or gods themselves.   
A thought clicked in my mind and I realised this was the sort of thing Bob had been talking about at that party thing and these must of been like the things he showed with the projector I hadn't gotten to see. I was really wishing I had now and also that I'd remembered more of his speech. Sighing a little to myself I looked up and around the room and realised there was something in a corner I had gone past. There were large canvases in front of most of it so it wasn't overly obvious that there was actually something there. As I moved closer to one of the larger canvases I noticed that the pictures that were visible on it weren't generally very bright and happy sorts. More along the lines of death and destruction was the main topic within it. There wasn't a happy face among any of the pokemon within it unless you counted a half-seen smirking figure in the shadows behind some sort of pillar. Shivering again I pushed past the hanging canvas so I could see what was behind it and took an involuntary step backwards and dropped what part of the canvas I had been holding. I know my face must of gone white because I could feel the blood draining away, not an enjoyable feeling. Quickly moving forwards again and ignoring the canvas this time I grabbed my sketchbook out from within my backpack and glanced around at everything that was in front and around me now.   
Nothing matched exactly, but I knew that most if not all of them were in some relation to my Demon Mew. Almost every single one looked similar, with wings and horns and missing body parts to each of them. Except for one single one. There was a large stone propped up against the corner wall and chiselled into that was another Mew, but nothing seemed wrong with it. There was no colour in the stone so I couldn't tell what colours it was meant to be except that around each eye and along its chest and the underside of its tail there was some sort of darker colouring. The eyes themselves seemed surprisingly small for a Mew and really everything about it looked sort of thin or stretched. But that could of been accounted to the artist who originally depicted the picture, maybe they thought that Mew's were that thin and the fact it had markings didn't seem to be so strange when compared to everything else in the room having odd markings. But there was something odd to the Mew, it was holding a scythe and as far as I knew, pokemon generally didn't actually use weaponry aside from what they naturally had.   
Shaking my head I started to look more carefully at the different things in the corner, which was rather hard as the lighting was anywhere near as good as the rest of the room as the canvases masking the corner kept out a large portion of the light from the windows and ceiling lights. As I had a closer look I realised there were other pokemon depicted as well on the different items and that there seemed to be more humans in this one small are than in the rest of the entire room. Which was extremely strange, though the fact they always seemed to be in the shadows or overwatching was even stranger.   
"Wonder why the people are always watching the Mew's..."   
"I've thought that myself actually, but I guess we'll never know.... unless of course we discover something that'll explain it to us. But really, even if we do I doubt we'd be able to understand it. Almost everything here is in a pokemon language no longer used by any pokemon known."   
I jumped what felt like a mile at the sound of another voice and turned to look at the speaker, "Uh, I didn't realise..." it was Bob again.   
"That someone was here? Oh I can believe that by how intent you've been looking at things," he smiled at me seeming most amused. "Oh, well, uh.. er.." I stuttered. "Oh know, it's perfectly fine, that's what this place is for. To get the people interested in the work we do." That smile wasn't leaving his face anytime soon I could bet.   
"And I was actually about to send you a message Damon. Wanted to know if you had done any more of your glorious pictures of these little fellows here. Though well, your character more isn't it? Because most of the pictures seem to be the same one. No matter." I just stood and didn't have a clue as of what to say, didn't seem to matter as he continued to speak and started looking around me. "So is your little character in any of these? I hadn't actually thought to look here, which is fairly bad on my behalf since I set up this exhibit, no worries. I can ask you here now can't I?" and he laughed, I just shook my head and said no. Which was the truth, I hadn't seen Rann'no'ch here in any of the pictures.   
"Well that's a pity. Oh well! Maybe you'd like to come and see my collection, it's somewhat more extensive than what's here. Mainly as they wouldn't let me display as much on the subject as I would of preferred. Something about it being too depressing or scary or something of the like. Not good for the public who come in. Anyway, my office is in the second building and I could take you there if you like. I'm sure there'd be something interesting for you and I could ask you some questions about those pictures of yours!" I couldn't help but doubt I was meant to say no and as much as I'd prefer to stay where I was I couldn't help but think that Bob's collection of artefacts and what not was probably better than what was on display, even if there wasn't going to be little cards telling me what they meant. I'd be able to ask Bob hopefully. Down side to this was probably going to be the fact Bob was going to be asking me questions, but I could probably get around most of those so no big deal.  
So I went with Bob. 


	7. 7

****************************** There was a break here on other the page, just forgot it ^.^; **********************************  
  
I would say that the walk to Bob's office was boring but for the fact it wasn't. He started to tell me about what he actually did here and that this was his main work base, at least for the moment. It seemed that Bob had always been interested in history and it was his favourite subject at Pokemon Tech and he'd wanted to find out more about it afterwards so had gone through various methods to get where he was now. That was interesting enough finding out the different things he'd gone through and all but of course more so were the things he'd discovered during his time doing his work. It seemed that pokemon history aside from on a scientific basis of evolution no one had ever gone into behaviour studies except for one or two people, but even they hadn't gone into it anywhere near as deeply as what Bob had originally hopped. So Bob had there from dedicated himself to finding out as much as he could about the histories of pokemon civilisations. Something I found fascinating that I learnt was that Bob could speak over forty different pokemon languages and in even more different dialects so he could get a percentage of his research from pokemon themselves. I had to ask if he knew any form of Vulpix but he said he didn't, though he did know Hitmonlee, Arcanine, Umbreon, Jolteon, Dratini, Chansey, Psyduck, Dugtrio and Steelix to name a few. Despite what most people thought of Psyduck it seemed that their language was exceedingly complicated and had actually taken Bob months to get it down perfectly but it had all been worth it in the end he said. I couldn't totally believe that myself but I nodded and smiled.   
Glancing about as we moved there wasn't all that much to notice. There were mostly rooms filled with the same things I'd seen at first in the first building and in the second everything was set up more with equipment to look at things better. Also there were some offices and the few I got to actually peek inside seemed to almost all be piled up with stacks and stacks of papers on desks with large computer systems set up on them.   
Bob was going on about a certain discovery that he'd made about the way Koffing and Weezing were often used in past times to create smoke screens for certain events and before them that more commonly used were Gastly as they could create illusions that would make the effect more believable, when we stopped outside the door to his office and he went about fumbling in one of his pockets for a key. Shaking my head I watched as he finally found the key and used it on the door, to not much effect as he grabbed the handle and found it locked still. I raised an eyebrow and watched him as he tried again, waiting for the sound of two clicks before trying once more with the door handle. I grinned as I realised what he was doing, instead of opening the door he was just locking it again, I pointed this out to him. Smiling Bob slapped his head then led me inside his office to find someone was already there.   
Marcus looked up from behind a pile of books and papers grinning until he saw me then it promptly disappeared. Bob waved at Marcus and gave him a warm greeting that wasn't returned with half the warmth as he kept his eyes on me and I found myself becoming increasingly uncomfortable. Which I didn't see as fair seeing as up until then I'd been having a good time. Trying to keep my attention away from Marcus I looked around Bob's office and noticed that the walls were decorated nearly as much as the display room we'd been in before, though there were notably more charts of the darker side of things plus maps of different areas as well as a couple of anatomy posters of various pokemon. My eyes stopped on the left wall as I noticed a picture I'd definitely seen before unlike almost every other one in the office. It was one of my pictures that I'd drawn, though quiet a lot larger than what I'd originally done. I did it without noticing and walked over to my picture and looked up at it over a wall cabinet. "This.. this is one of my pictures isn't it?" I mumbled to no one in particular but Bob answered anyway, "Yes, that's one of your pictures. I looks great blown up doesn't it? You can see all those little details much better." I nodded and smiled, it did look much better like this.   
"Are we going to see the site Bob or are we going to be waiting until tomorrow again?" Came an impatient voice from Marcus's direction. I turned around and looked at him questioningly but he ignored me and just watched Bob intently. Bob seemed to have a light bulb go off in his head as his face lit up and he clapped his hands together in front of him, "Oh yes! I nearly forgot all about it Marcus, thanks for reminding me. Shall we go then?" Marcus shot me a look as Bob seemed to of forgotten momentarily that I was there, but he waved a hand and smiled looking at me again, "Oh yes. I'm sure are little friend here would enjoy seeing it as well. He seems nearly as interested in my work as I am Marcus. So come along wont you Damon?" I didn't have a clue what it was and we'd just arrived in Bob's office, I would much rather of preferred to stay but something started nagging the back of my mind and so I said yes and off we went once more.   
This time though I had both Bob and Marcus with me and Marcus had decided to start asking me questions about different things. This was extremely annoying as I didn't have real answers for a lot of them and I had no real intention of letting him in on certain parts of my life. Lucky for me Bob interjected quiet often when I started to stumble over things or couldn't quiet find the right answer. Couldn't help but feel most grateful for this.   
By the end of the walk I felt like I'd gone over my story that I'd made up about where I'd gotten the inspiration for the Mew Demon pictures a hundred times and then other small things about myself that I didn't see have any relevance to anything.   
We'd walked outside a long while ago and been moving through forest for a while as before it was that we actually stopped and it was outside what appeared at first glance as a barren rock face. I looked between both Marcus and Bob and raised a brow, "So..." they both ignored me as Marcus led Bob over towards a small stand of bushes and trees and I had to nearly run to catch up. But I did just in time to follow them both through a large crack that had been hidden previously by a large tree that'd been standing dead in the way.   
It was pitch black for the first few meters and I kept bumping into Bob even with my arms spread out in front of my so I could try and get some sort of warning of what was ahead. That didn't seem to help me all that much because even as I moved my arms left and right and took what few steps I could in those directions there wasn't anything to stop me from continuing in those directions. But seeing as I couldn't see what on earth was there I had a mind to just stay as close to the sounds of Bob's and Marcus's feet as possible.   
There was no warning between the darkness and the light that suddenly flooded over me as I took yet another step and found myself in an extremely well lit thin passageway that spread left and right to an unimaginable distance. I quickly turned from looking down either left or right as it was making my head spin. Marcus was grinning and so was Bob, but Bob spoke first, "Oh I'm glad we didn't loose you then, I forgot to warn you about that. The darkness that is, it's rather disorienting isn't it? Stepping into all that darkness then finding that you're suddenly surrounded by light." I just nodded not looking at him as Bob was standing with the left side of the passageway straight behind him. He seemed to notice this as he chuckled, "Oh, yes, that as well. It's not real though. We're actually only in a really small room. Look," and he took a couple of steps backwards and seemed to hit an invisible wall that rippled with his touch. I was amazed and quickly rushed over to touch the wall myself. "We aren't exactly sure what makes the effect just yet but it's something like mirrors and illusions type of thing. See, if you look at the patterns on the walls they repeat for infinite amounts of times in each direction and they're all identical. As good an artist you can get I somewhat doubt anyone could do them all that perfectly without a printer of some sort." He grinned and turned to look at Marcus as he'd pulled out a small laptop computer he'd brought along as well as a digital camera and was setting them up in the center of the room.  
I took the opportunity to look at all the walls of the room and noticed that the spot we'd come through was a pure white gap in the wall and that it was the only real distinguishing feature of the whole place. Looking down the mirage passageway in both directions I also noticed that the white patch didn't appear in any of the reflections and couldn't help but find that slightly odd. But I just shrugged it off to look at the markings on the walls instead. Now this was just utterly confusing for me. There seemed to be five primary colours of a black, white, red, blue and yellow and each had there own section with a different pattern imprinted to each spot. Under this were two lines of engravings that I couldn't possibly decipher and decided to check on what Marcus and Bob were doing.   
Marcus had stopped setting up and was now taking pictures and downloading them to his computer, though he seemed to be waiting an awfully long time between each picture taking as I watched him, at least twenty seconds. Shrugging to myself I went to walk over towards them both and tripped over something instead and became flat on the ground with my face in the dirt. Spitting and spluttering I pulled myself up as quickly as possible into a sitting position with my face glowing red. Marcus smirked a little but Bob looked somewhat concerned. "Do be careful wont you Damon? You nearly fell back through the door, which isn't extremely advisable." I looked up at him rather blankly and I think he thought he should explain a little better. "Well, you see.. Actually, uh. Oh, yes, that's right. You see, with where we just came through to get here right?" I nodded, "Well, like I said before it's good that you followed us so well before, as well, when we first found out about this place we found that through most of that blackness is the wrong way. And what I mean by the wrong way is that you get transported to somewhere else if you take a step too far in the wrong direction." I guess I still looked somewhat blank as he went into explaining what that meant exactly. "You've been to some of the bigger cities right? Well a lot of the larger buildings have things called warp tiles, well, it's very much like that. You step onto a certain spot and it makes you disappear from that spot and reappear in another already selected spot by whoever originally created this place. And unlike the warp tiles you find in buildings these are all one way and take you to places much further than a couple of meters. They actually found one of the people who discovered this place on the other side of the continent after they disappeared in the blackness. We also lost quiet a few of our scientists and research assistants to various places around the city, some into rather tight situations where the land's been changed since being originally appointed a receiving spot for one of the transports. Like between two buildings or within a wall, lucky for us it hasn't been anything too serious just yet, mostly comical actually," and he smiled. I also made myself move as far as possible away from the white door which made Marcus laugh. I glared at him but decided I'd prefer to be laughed at than accidentally fall back into the darkness and probably turn up where I didn't have a clue.   
A question popped into my head and I looked at Bob, "So how did you know where to go?" "Oh, that, well, we did have to risk some of our more brave scientists and research assistants to try and make their way through until they actually got to where we are now. Then some more to find a way back as we found out quiet quickly that you can't take the same way back as to get here. Quiet annoying actually, but oh well. Well anyway, after we'd worked out the way to get in we all had to memorise the way in our heads as we found out earlier in the operation that no lights would work within the darkness and that the floor couldn't be dented to be able to put in a stake of any kind and nothing can stand in a single spot for more than a sunrise as it seems to just disappear. So yes, that's how we've figured out where to go," then he grinned, which didn't make me feel the least bit good. This whole place didn't sound the least bit safe and I was beginning to wonder if all this was worth it. Then I remembered something about another site that'd been discovered a long time ago to do with Unown and the difficulties that'd created. So I guessed people like this had to put up with some sort of risk at different points, still wasn't something that was completely appealing to me now.   
Marcus was looking up from his watch with a slight frown and started to mutter something along the lines of 'we should leave now' when Bob pointed out something on the roof to me. So me looking up at the ceiling as Bob and Marcus started to pack up I was wondering why I was looking there when Bob tapped my shoulder and I looked down surprised to find that everything was packed up already and it had been less than a second or two. I started to open my mouth to speak but Bob just grinned and shook his head, "We better be going now, it'll be late." "Late?" It had only been at most two o'clock or so when I'd met Bob, and it couldn't be much longer than an hour we'd been here. But Marcus had already left out through the white door and Bob was following after, me not wanting to be left alone there quickly raced after.   
It didn't take nearly as long as when we came inside to go through the dark this time but now I was making sure I followed as close as possible to Bob in front of me as I didn't even want the possibility of me going the wrong way to come up. Again there was a shock as I stepped suddenly out of the dark and into the light, but this time there was also a strong searing pain of fire that rode its way all over my body and I shouted out in surprise. My hands automatically went to my arms and started patting at them tentatively as they felt like they were on fire. The feeling disappeared after a while and looking at Bob and Marcus I noticed that they were both standing there. I flushed red.   
"Felt like you were on fire? Forgot about that, sorry Damon." I looked at Bob in surprise, "Yeah..." "Yeah, it's something inside that room we were in, it messes with a whole heap of them, not the least of which heat. You don't notice it as you enter or even as time goes by but inside that room it's miles below zero degrees in temperature." Marcus snorted behind Bob and Bob sighed, "Ok well, not quiet that much, but it's more like you'd find on a cold day deep in the snow, not what you'd expect. So when you leave it doesn't give you the same effect, you stay frozen as you leave the dark and the moment you step out into the normal weather the effect leaves you and you get stuck feeling like you're on fire despite the fact it's only actually the normal temperature." Bob suddenly looked around as we started moving through the trees and back towards the research center, "Oh, sorry Marcus, it is later than I thought. Didn't mean to keep you in there so long." That's when I noticed that the sky was nearly black, just that there were lights strung up along a path from where we'd just been to the center so we could see our way. It was late..." where'd all those hours go?" Bob had looked back at me a moment and nodded, "Yeah, strange isn't it? Like the temperature time seems to be rather messed up in that room as well. What we felt couldn't of been more than three quarters of an hour or so but out here we passed a couple of hours. From what me and others have gathered the more you concentrate on certain parts of the room the slower or faster the room moves. Like how I got you to look at the roof, felt like only a couple of seconds didn't it? Well it was more than that, more around five minutes that you stood there." A grin grew on his face and I went slightly red again at thinking of me standing staring at the roof for fire minutes without moving. I really wished Bob hadn't gotten me to do that, but at least the point got crossed over.   
Suddenly I noticed that Marcus wasn't with us any longer and also that we were at the back of the center again. I stopped there and watched as Bob went to go inside. He paused and turned to look at me, "I guess you'd be staying at the Pokemon Center or something of the like in town right? Most trainers tend to find some sort of residence there for at least a while." I nodded, "Ok then, I'll send you a message sometime later tomorrow so you can come here again if that's alright with you. You never did get to have a look at my work did you?"   
So with that we organised that I'd be seeing Bob and Marcus again tomorrow and I went about going for what felt to be the long walk back to the Pokemon Center.  
  
**************************************** 


	8. 8

For the next two weeks I continued to go see Bob and Marcus at what I found out to be called the Sidan Technical Center of Past and Future History, S.T.C.P.F.H. or STC for short and spent most of my time with them finding out heaps of things I didn't even have the slightest clue about to do with pokemon and their past. Bob was also teaching me how to read one of the ancient pokemon languages that he'd learnt when he was younger. The only real thing that was a down side with spending so much time with Bob and Marcus was that Marcus was continuing to make small snide comments and such at me, though they did dull down quiet a lot after a while they were still there and he was continually making me feel like an idiot. But I found it to be worth it and that Marcus was actually quiet good at what he did. Marcus was no more than five years younger than Bob but he was the research assistant and seemed to know nearly as much about pokemon history as Bob if not more in some areas. His speciality seemed to be more to do with the hierarchy between different species of pokemon and working out what different social structures had been created because of this. Most of it was fairly simple and basic even for someone who'd never thought about the sort of thing before but some parts were utterly confusing. Like a large portion of rock type pokemon were fairly low in reference to basically everything and also that every dark type had a position, but it was in the background to everything else. They seemed to be like the Mafia of the pokemon world, except that the head bosses were always some other sort of pokemon and the dark types were always the men to do the dirty work. It was all really interesting to go and find the papers that Marcus needed to actually verify certain things in his theories.   
Bob himself specialised in a more religious and superstition part of the pokemon world as I'd had guessed earlier, though he still seemed just as informative about almost everything else as well. It was just that he prized himself on these aspects above all others. Which wasn't all that bad. I got to find out more to do with the Demon Mews a general thing. If even half of what Bob had recorded was true I couldn't help but think myself fairly lucky. Most of the demons were generally called through summoning methods and to wreak revenge on someone for a wrong doing which they were more than obliged to do. And quiet often while reading some of the things that they had done to the recipients I had had to close the book and take some deep breaths. Things that gross just weren't possible and weren't something I wanted to imagine. I've always been a very visual person and someone making a comment to make a picture the picture quiet often pops into my head without me having to close my eyes or anything. So reading from a book in great detail certain things wasn't a good idea all the time.   
One thing I found odd about a lot of the reference books was that they were almost all just books related to human history with certain parts marked out that associates pokemon and different things to do with them in reference to the people of the time. Either that or they were stories and fable type of things. When I commented on that Bob just said that most stories have a basis on real life and that more than half of the oldest ones records didn't have any name to mark as the creator.   
During the time I spent with Bob and Marcus I also got to meet a large amount of the other scientists and professors and other people that worked in the place. Most were nice enough to speak to and they'd let me have a look around their office or at different things they'd discovered themselves or were researching about. But then you got others who just ignored me or snubbed me when ever possible. Peterman was one of these last people. He was working with a group of other men and woman that were also looking into the new discovery of the cave. It seemed that they believed that it had been created by some ancient race of men who had abilities in different things that I couldn't understand and such. Where as Bob was quiet insistent that it had been built by pokemon. Not that there was really much to verify either theory yet. Despite all the types of testings they'd made on the place everything had come back normal. And I mean normal by that everything came back with the result of neutral. Nothing was either one way or the other. Which was extremely weird in its own right as a lot of the tests weren't things that could be answered with a neutral element. The biggest thing that was the main problem was that the pictures and Scripture on the walls weren't of anything that'd been seen before and nothing depicted anything of a certain nature. They were just markings. This was the main cause of argument while I was about that I noticed. One person would say that one certain part of the wall definitely looked like this, then another person would say that something right next to what that person had said looked like something totally different. And the result would be a huge long discussion about why it was one and not the other and just as it ended someone else would come along and declare something else about both things and the argument would start up again. It was quiet amusing the first few times watching the arguments but it quickly became repetitive and I could guess the answers that'd come out of certain peoples mouth before they even said what they were going to say.   
I was also surprised at how many people actually come the museum part of the place. It happened to be that I had come on an off day when no tours are on and it's just an open day to walk around like you liked. But usually there was a tour every two hours from ten till four. Mostly of people from out of town or from different expensive sorts of schools. The museum happened to be one of the best in the world for artefacts and information on history and after getting a proper look around myself I saw why. The entire place was a lot larger than I originally thought plus the fact it was three stories high in some places giving a lot of room for different things to go in.   
For the moment I'd decided to do something I'd already done a couple of times. I was waiting in the room I'd met Bob near what I'd decided was my favourite exhibit, 'Shadows behind a Pokemon Past' as the demon section was called. It was my favourite as I'd been able to see what other Demon Mew looked like and I'd sat and sketched different variations based on both what was around me and my own experiences and so far I'd come up with some brilliant drawings of different scenes, most from just out of my mind, others of stories I'd read and heard about with Bob and Marcus. Anyway, I was hanging around waiting for the next tour to come through which shouldn't of been too much longer. This was what I'd done a couple of times, seeing as I'd been finding out as much as I could about this sort of things I'd decided why not share it with someone. Someone I'd look somewhat smart to at least and who'd actually listen. Plus it was fun correcting people when they made mistakes or just commenting on different things that people said.   
The group didn't look anything out of the usual as I watched them enter through the passageway I had previously. Mosts attention were elsewhere as was normal for school groups. Though this room in particular tended to get more peoples attention to the rest of the place as the notion behind it was more original and not as well known as most other historical things. I watched and waited from my mostly hidden spot in the corner as the tour guide went over her prerecorded speech about the room in general and on certain artefacts before letting people start to wander around on their own to check things out. I'd have ten to fifteen minutes depending on who the guide was and how much of a hurry they were in plus what the teachers themselves wanted their students to look at in particular. I was watching the students move around the different display cases and models and things with only minor interest, everyone was around my age and dressed in either blues or greys. Either two different uniforms for two different schools or they had a separate uniform for boys and for the girls, I'd seen that before so I wasn't exactly sure. Third year PokeTech students though from what I could guess and I was pretty sure about that. I was trying to decipher what school exactly it was when I recognised a couple of the students and it hit me.  
The first thought to come into mind was run. But that wasn't the best idea so I just took the first option available and stepped back into hiding further into the corner. I was hoping beyond hope that absolutely no one would notice the display, but there wasn't much chance in that. The canvases depictions would be target enough for certain types and it always drew someone closer, no matter the size of the group at least one person was always to step into just the right position to notice that there was something extra here where I was. I shook myself and tried to think of what to do. I needed to hide or something!   
Some giggling and hushed tauntings accompanied some shadows dancing over one of the canvases and I knew I was found. Ok, well, I needed to think of something quick then didn't I? But it was too late... A group of five people suddenly swarmed into where I was standing and despite all the talking that had been going on just before they stepped in everything went silent as each one of the students eyed over everything in front of them. I cringed back into a corner as far as possible putting my back to the group and hoping they'd just ignore me and look at everything else instead. Which didn't happen.   
One of the boys came over and poked me center of the back as half of them started reading some of the plaques about the Mew Death and the other half watched their friend. "Hey you. What are you doing here?" I shuffled on my feet a little and glanced over my shoulder, only turning my head as little as possible, which was hard, and tried to see who was in the group that was there. I sighed with relief and turned around fully seeing that there was no one I recognised. "Me? I was just looking at the display..." The boy who'd poked me raised his brow, shrugged and looked back at his friends, "Sean you know stuff about this sort of thing don't you? Come on, we gotta show Liam and Crate this," and with that he grabbed his two friends and took off past the canvas marking the area to go looking for their friends. I blinked a few times and looked at the boy and girl who'd just stopped reading to watch their friends run off. The girl noticed me and frowned furiously, "I know you from somewhere..." I just stepped back further into the wall and scratched my head with a long line of 'ers' and 'uhs' as response which made her step closer and her friend look at me more intently as well.   
"Hey, you're that Jamie kid who disappeared last year!" the boy declared and the girl nodded her head in agreement. I cringed and tried to step back again, this wasn't working well. The girl had stopped frowning now and was looking concerned or something of the like, "Hey, why'd you do that anyway? They never said anything about how or why you'd disappeared, just that you did..." I stood frozen and could feel panic starting to rise within me, my fingers were playing lightly over Are'ea's Pokéball for the first time in a long while out of nerves. The boy suddenly crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the girl, I also noticed he was at least a head taller than me and my panic went up a notch. "Uh, like, uh, I need to leave..." and I made as fast as I could past the girl and boy and out into the rest of the room. Which I will mark as number three bad thing I'd done so far. Number one being even coming to wait for this tour in the first place, two for being discovered by the boy and girl just then and now number three for coming out from the corner into a group of eight boys, three of which I recognised from a year ago and could still quiet vividly remember their names.   
I was trying to move backwards now as five people gasped and everyone who could see me suddenly looked in my direction. Backwards didn't work as the boy and girl had decided to follow me out and the girl had run right into my back sending me and her to the floor in a messy tumble that I got out of as quickly as possible. Standing up again and looking around at all the staring eyes unleashed my panic and I started stuttering useless words before someone shouted "YOU!" at me and I looked in that direction specifically. Tailor Carr, not in the least the person I wanted to see. This was a person who'd been a friend of mine when I'd still gone to this school. At least a friend in his mind, I'd never had any real ones while I was there, never had a real friend as I am now really, just nothing's ever worked out. Tailor was glaring at me with all the rage of a Scyther that'd just seen a red flashcard and I took that very moment to bolt.   
I shoved everyone out of my way as I ran, not caring in the least if anyone hit the ground or was hurt, I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. Within moments I knew someone was chasing after me as I heard more than one pair of footsteps hitting the lino not too far behind me. I had one advantage that was fairly obvious, seeing as I'd just spent the last two weeks here I knew where I was going. I ducked under a banner and straight into a newly opened area that was displaying something to do with mighty structures of the past and present and contained to scale models of various monuments and buildings all over the place. A good place to use as a maze as everything in this room had been placed so you could only view certain parts of each structure, why exactly was beyond me, but it worked well for the very moment so I didn't exactly care right then. I could still hear footsteps behind me as I skidded around the last obstacle at the end and took the extra moment to look over my shoulder just to see who exactly was chasing after me. There was Tailor Carr for starters then his two real best friends Kimmi Johnson and Liam Scrawl, then there were the five of the boys I'd met after coming out of the corner display and the girl and boy from inside it. A wonderfully large group.   
There was only one thing in my mind as I ran from then on, to get to one certain place, I'd be perfectly safe their and no one would be able to follow. Opening and slamming doors around me I ran right through the complex ignoring shouts and screams of complaint, much like everyone else who was following me, I just wasn't able to loose anyone. Though for one moment I did think I'd lost them all but just found three turns later that by some fluke on their behalf they'd all come out ahead of me. I'd had to sneak up really close to one of them just to get past and only because there was a large selection of indoor plants lining the way to the door I needed to go through. I gave myself away a moment later though as I closed a door too loudly behind me and one of them spotted my head moving around a corner or something and that sent them all after me once more.   
By the time I'd cleared the complex and finally made my way outside I'd actually managed to get a good hundred meters ahead of them, only problem being that the path to where I was heading you could see that far ahead at most times and I never thought to actually stop using the path and go elsewhere. There was only the one thought in mind and that was to get to somewhere I knew well and that I'd be safe the moment I got there. So I continued to run with the shouts and sounds of pounding feet to pavement and stone pursuing after me.   
I was starting to feel tired by the time I saw the white ahead of me and realised I was just so close that it'd only be moments before I was safe again. Again I shoved my way past the people in my way and ignored their complaints and comments as they were moved out of my way, though some were more reluctant than others and at least half tried to grab my back, I was just too fast to be stopped though and I kept going where I wanted to go. They started to ignore me though as they realised a large group was coming straight after me and I quickly made my way towards the small thicket, most of which had been removed during the previous fortnight and slipped in between the large stone walls and into the large black gap.   
I could hear shouts and screams and something that sounded surprisingly like Marcus's and Bob's voices saying something like, "Stop Damon!" But I wasn't sure and I didn't have the reason in mind to go back and find out if it was really them. The noises outside were becoming louder anyway as I could hear the kids that'd been following me trying to go after me and get me where I was now but the lab people were holding them back and not letting them through.   
The sounds didn't last all that long though as I moved further and deeper into the blackness and it blocked out more and more of the sound. Lucky for me Marcus had been extremely insistent on me learning the proper path in and out of the cave and had made sure Bob and himself had thoroughly imprinted it into my head so I'd know where to go on my own and they wouldn't have to worry about me as much when they came here.   
Something that came to mind though was that all the times that people had actually come here, were all at nearly the exact same time as each other. I paused in my movements and stood there looking through the inky blackness at nothing and thought some to myself. Another thought struck my mind about how Bob had said about anything being in one position too long had just disappeared got me moving again and towards the cave thing. This was the earliest time I'd ever come to this, it couldn't be past twelve and every time I'd come here had been at the earliest two. Maybe something happened before two?   
I found out.  
As I took the last step I found myself blinking furiously so I'd adjust to the new lighting that had just flooded over me and looked around what I expected to be the normal room that seemed to be a passage that went on forever. But I was in for a surprise.   
It was completely different.  
There was nothing on any of the walls except for the white rectangle that I'd entered through. The mirage passageway was gone and in its place where two plain stone walls with nothing obviously special about them. I frowned and looked back out the way I had come and was wondering if maybe I'd taken a wrong step and gone the wrong way or something when I found myself squeezing my eyes as tightly shut as possible and walking blindly forwards with my hands out. I was taking too many steps when I realised I could open my eyes again without the blinding light, though it wasn't much of an improvement, I was seeing pitch blackness and it was little different. I sighed and started to take what I thought was the proper route back when I realised that I didn't know how many steps I'd taken to actually get to where I was now. So this meant I didn't know where exactly I was and which way was safe to go. Though I guessed any way other than standing still so long that I'd find out where exactly it is you went when you disappeared was a better option. My heart rate was going faster again after that brief calm and I was feeling just a little scared.   
Suddenly someone came fumbling out of nowhere and bumped straight into me, we exchanged brief noises of surprise at each other before I found myself stepping backwards two steps and a tingly feeling running right through my body and I suddenly felt lighter than air itself.   
  
***************************************** *Boo!!* **************************************** 


	9. 9

Next moment I found myself with a mouth full of mud and my body sinking into something squelchy.  
Not the best feeling to say the least. Especially after that wonderful light feeling I'd felt just a moment before. A second later and I was expecting the usual feeling of burning you normally got after visiting the cave and to my great surprise and utter dismay I found my entire body feeling like as if it had turned into a living icicle. I picked myself up out of the mud and dirt as quickly as possible and curled up into a ball rubbing both my legs and arms. Even as my body was warming up sufficiently I realised that I was still being cold and that I was becoming even more wetter than what I'd been upon arrival. Turning my muddy face up to the sky I felt the light touch of many raindrops washing away the mud from my face with relief and once more went about picking myself up, this time from the ground. As much as I was enjoying the nice warmish shower, I was going to very quickly become cold again and I needed out of the rain.   
Glancing around I made my way as fast as possible towards a large overhanging white thing that was sticking out from between some trees and took up shelter under that. As I was wiping off mud and wringing out my clothes from the rain and mud water I realised that my shelter wasn't exactly something natural and it was made of steel. It also looked very much out of place between the trees.   
Shrugging and deciding I really couldn't get all that much wetter anyway I moved around the trees to find out what exactly this white steel was attached to. It didn't take long and I got another big surprise for my behalf. What I'd seen was the wing of a small plane that'd obviously crashed, and not long ago as I could still see some smoke spilling out from various parts of white metal around the place. I frowned a little and realised that there had to of been people in the plane and I moved as fast as I possibly could towards the closest door. My hand was on the latch to the door when it suddenly swung outwards and someone stepped out holding their head. Stepped and fell that is as this side of the plane had turned itself somewhat on its side so that the windows were facing more of the sky than the skyline itself. I moved to catch the person as soon as I saw them fell and realised I knew who it was.   
It was Kandy again.   
Now this was just shock one shock for me for one day and my head was becoming just a little dizzy. But I was having to help hold up Kandy still as she wasn't exactly doing it all that well for herself before I was going to allow myself to be keeling over anywhere. I sat her down on one of the logs that'd been created by the crash and went back to the plane to make sure no one else was inside. I couldn't possibly believe that Kandy had been the only person actually inside of it. It didn't take long to look around the cockpit and what was left of the passenger seats and get back to Kandy and realise that she was on her own. There hadn't been anyone else with her at least, there was no indication that there had been anyone else there.   
I looked Kandy over a moment and realised she had a large gash down one of her arms that the rain was doing a fairly good job of cleaning and letting the blood run. Without really thinking I tore off part of my shirt and tied it around her arm as tightly as possible to try and put some pressure on it before moving around to her other side and pulling her away to somewhere safer. As much as I was fairly sure it wasn't going to, I couldn't be totally sure the plane wasn't going to blow at all still so I needed to take Kandy and me as far away from it as possible.   
So me pulling Kandy along with some effort got us a good distance away from the plane crash site before I found a decent enough place to put her down with shelter enough for both of us over the rain with a little extra. It was somewhat of a ditch in the ground that had a couple of large trees that criss-crossed through each other in the canopy then a couple of smaller bush type plants that made a lower roof for the ditch that created a fairly waterproof area for us. And the entire area was fenced off with a fallen log on one side and more bushes around most of the rest. Also the ditch itself was actually higher ground than most of the area around us as it was somewhere up a hill so all the water was draining away from us which was good.  
I sat Kandy down carefully as she seemed still thoroughly dazed and called out Are'ea from her Pokéball. She was a little fussed as I hadn't been giving her much attention as I usually would of over the past fortnight but she could tell I was being sincere and that I really did need her help so she was willing to help me collect some branches and things so we could create a small fire for the three of us. As I was making sure the fire was controllable and still large enough to keep us all warm I realised that I'd left my sketchbook back at the exhibit at the center and that all my things in general were still at the pokemon center pretty much and what else wasn't was with my sketchbook. I cursed loudly and sat down feeling most put out. Are'ea took up the opportunity to sit in my lap, but I didn't let her for long as I got up to get something for Kandy, she was shivering somewhat and I hadn't sat her down exactly right and seemed as if a strong gust of wind would send her tumbling. Are'ea once more huffy was rather reluctant in helping me move Kandy closer to the fire and collecting things to make a sort of bedding for her but she did none the less and I was most grateful.   
I don't exactly know how or when I actually fell asleep, but I knew that I'd finally sat down with one side of the ditch to my back and Are'ea sensing I wasn't about to move anytime real soon jumped back into my lap and curled up to sleep herself and keep me warm with her own body. I smiled and scratched under her chin lightly before she nodded off and I just sat staring through the fire at Kandy on the other side and thinking to myself.   
Strange things happen don't they.   
  
********************************* One of the shortest but oh well! it was uh, not really that busy! But I also don't know were more than half of that came from! So yeah! *wavies once more* ******************************************************** 


	10. 10

It was morning before I moved again and it took me a while to move much more than just the bare minimal at first. Are'ea had already moved from my lap a while ago and as I looked around I noticed that the fire was still going but not much more really than hot coals that occasionally flared up as something blew into the pit. Kandy also wasn't where I'd left her so that got my mind moving and I was about to go looking for her when Are'ea came bounding towards me with Kandy just a step behind. Sighing with relief I sat back down and waited till Kandy had sat down again before telling her what had happened. She smiled and nodded then went on about explaining what exactly she'd been doing flying a plane.   
Her story went as; she'd been lost and spotted the plane sitting in a clearing with no one about, so taking up on the opportunity and thinking it wouldn't really be hard that to fly a small plane she 'borrowed' it for a while. After initially getting used to the controls it'd been easy enough and she was having fun as she flew around in no particular direction. Then it'd started to rain and she found out why exactly the plane had been landed in the first place. She hadn't been able to find somewhere to land in time and the plane running out of gas had pretty much nose dived straight into the trees leaving her as she was when I found her.   
First thought at her stealing a plane was that she was an utter moron. But looking at her and thinking of the last time I'd met her I started thinking that this was probably something that happened quiet often, not stealing planes but doing extremely stupid things. At least she was grateful for being found, though more than a little surprised by who. Her head had still been spinning somewhat after she woke up she said but it'd quickly passed and she'd gotten somewhat of a shock at seeing where she was compared to where she'd last been. Being the impulsive person she was she hadn't woken me up and gone looking for where the plane was, Are'ea had sensed her getting up and followed after her, showing Kandy the plane before bringing her back again.   
Now was the point where we didn't know what to do next. I hadn't actually told Kandy how I'd come to be here, just that I'd noticed the wing of the plane when trying to shelter from the rain. So I had no idea where to go, and so far I hadn't exactly seen much that I recognised. Not that I'd actually had much of a chance to look around yet.   
As I looked around again and got up for the second time I noticed that Kandy had her bag with her now, she must of gotten it when checking out the plane earlier. Well at least now we had something, I inquired what she had inside of it and she went red before going over some utterly useless things. She also only had two pokemon on her at the moment as she'd left the rest at the last Pokemon Center she'd been at. Those being the Feraligatr I'd met previously sorta and a newly caught Mankey. Couldn't help but think that Kandy had a taste for tough pokemon, which you wouldn't really guess from the look of her. Really a first impression would think Kandy was one of those people who went all starry eyed over Clefairy and baby pokemon. Maybe she did and I'd just been catching her with the rougher sort of pokemon but I wasn't really so sure about that. Shrugging it off I looked at Kandy a moment and asked her when and where was the last place she could remember the name of she'd been to.   
Turned out we were in Kanto and not that far from Celadon, no more than three days walk. I couldn't help but be surprised at exactly how far I'd gone through that caves teleporting system. It must of shown on my face because Kandy gave me a quizzical look but I changed the subject and announced we I was going to Celadon then and Kandy could come if she wanted, I wasn't too fussed about wether or not she did. Of course Kandy agreed to come with me, seeing as she thought I knew where I was going and she was lost and she couldn't use her arm properly with the gash in it.   
So me, Kandy, Are'ea and Kandy's two pokemon got to get to know each other a little better and more so than I thought we would as it happened that it took five instead of three days to get to Celadon. Those last two and a half days with Kandy whining like mad and threatening to go her own way which didn't work too well as I was most happy to let her walk off on her own. That was about the worst of it except for one time when Kandy had her hands a little too close to my head and I somewhat freaked and stopped talking to her for a couple of hours which made her a somewhat offish for a while and made her think about what she was going to do before doing it around me. The general fact of me not liking people to touch me at all and vice versa got across to her fairly quick as well though got more of the result of her taunting me more than anything else.   
I hadn't actually been to Celadon properly before and neither had Kandy as I found out she was from Johto and knew her way around there better, a reason why she was continually getting lost so she said. So neither of us really knew where to go and the fact Celadon is so large didn't really help that much. But we eventually found our way to the city's Pokemon Center and got ourselves some accommodation.   
Having found the Center's catering room a little full for my liking both Kandy and I had found a small outdoor restaurant type of thing to eat out at as we hadn't exactly had a good selection of food to eat while out in the forest and I got to hear for the first time what had happened to the kids that'd been chasing me back at the Historical place. A group of people in suits were moving past and talking so loud it was rather easy to pick up on their conversation. As it happened it seemed that three of the people going after me had broken free of the scientists and other people that'd been trying to hold them back and managed to get their way into the darkness that was the entrance to the cave room. Of course seeing as they hadn't known where to go it hadn't taken them long to step in the wrong direction and be transported to somewhere else. Two of them had been found still within a couple of miles of the city but the third wasn't found for over a day as they'd reformed in between two houses and his cries for help had been muffled and gone unnoticed by the occupants of the homes as they'd just thought it was noise from their neighbours. It'd taken one of the peoples young children playing with the house pet that'd discovered the boy stuck between the two houses and they'd had to call the emergency services to get him out.   
I couldn't help but laugh out loud which got a lot of odd look from people sitting around us but I was feeling too good with myself to care what they thought. Kandy asked what I was laughing at and I didn't think to lie so I told her, she didn't see what was so extremely funny about it but did laugh a little herself.   
I'd nearly finished eating when a thought struck me, I'd bumped into someone on my way out of the blackness but there had been no one who'd reached me while in the room and for some strange reason anyone who walked in wouldn't meet anyone who was walking out and the same went for the other way. So who had I met inside the blackness? Maybe there had been someone who'd gotten through as well... But how was I going to find out. Then it hit me. Bob! I needed to get my things anyway, I could ring him and ask for my stuff back and at the same time ask if anyone else had gone through after me or anything.   
I was getting up while Kandy was still only halfway through her second dessert and with a few mumbled words I left her with a surprised look as I left and went running back to the Pokemon Center. I wanted to ring Bob as soon as possible, this was the first time since it'd happened that I'd even thought of getting my stuff, or even anything really to do with the event as seeing as I hadn't told Kandy about it it hadn't crossed my mind at all.   
I was back inside the Pokemon Center and standing in front of a phone when I realised I didn't know how to call Bob, I'd never thought to get his number or anything seeing as I was spending each day with him and Marcus and they'd called to get me to come. So I was stuck as to what to do now... Not for long at least as a Nurse Joy walked past me and I asked her for help. In the typical friendly manner she showed me a phone book and I said my thanks before looking up the Sidan Technical Center.   
There was only one reference in the book so I took a wild guess at it being right and rang it up on the video phone. A receptionist answered the phone and I asked to speak to either Bob or Marcus, using their full names of course as you wouldn't expect someone looking like me would call either of them by their normal everyday names. I gave my name when asked and it wasn't much longer before I was switched to Bob's office and I got to say hello to a very tired looking Marcus. Though for once he seemed very pleased to see me, that didn't last very long as I got to stand for the next five or ten minutes as he went off his head at me about running off like that and leading all those other kids to the site and having some of them run into the cave as well and a whole heap of other things that I didn't exactly catch as I found myself turning somewhat deaf.   
Lucky for me Bob finally came into the room and he stopped Marcus's ranting as he told me he was very happy to see me alive and well. Also that he did have my stuff and if I'd like him to send it to me which I said yes to straight away. Marcus also put in a comment that they'd had a look through my sketch book and Bob seemed somewhat embarrassed about that and apologised about not asking first. My mind raced for a moment as I thought over what was inside the book but I realised nothing all that important really, all of those pictures were in a hidden pocket at the bottom of my backpack and so I accepted the apology with a genuine smile. Bob seemed relieved at this and wiped his brow, I just smiled even more.   
So we got talking for at least an hour or so more, mostly about what'd been happening since I'd gone and the troubles they'd gone through because of what'd happened with me. It seemed that it was actually a good thing I'd disappeared while going through the darkness. I asked if anyone else had actually gotten through like me but Bob said no one else but the three students had gotten through and no one else had been allowed in the whole day as everyone had been put to work in finding where those kids and me had gone. No one but Bob and Marcus seemed to know that I knew my way through the darkness and they hadn't been obliged to tell anyone that they'd taught a kid how to so they'd gone along with it, plus Marcus had fully believed that I wouldn't of been able to tell where I was going by the way I'd rushed into the cave in the first place. Which was pretty much true, it had been mostly luck that I'd gotten through in the first place.   
I was listening to Bob talk about a breakthrough he'd made with some of the writings on the walls of the cave when Marcus interrupted and asked me why the students who'd been chasing me had been so insistent that my name had been Jamie and not Damon. I was searching for an answer to this with both Marcus and Bob looking at me intently when Kandy suddenly showed up and I had an opportunity to change the subject. So I introduced Bob and Marcus to Kandy and Kandy to them. Bob said something along the lines of, "Oh yes I've seen you before, never properly introduced though have we?" Marcus merely nodded but Kandy beamed at him, couldn't honestly see why myself, personally I didn't think he was really that what you'd call the 'attractive' sort, but maybe that's cause I'm a guy and don't really think about that sort of thing when looking at other guys...   
Anyway I went about wrapping up the conversation and made sure that Bob would send my things to the Celadon City Pokemon Center and to me personally and hung up. Marcus didn't seem all that pleased about it but I was grateful, I still couldn't exactly think of how to answer the last question he'd asked me. The fact Kandy suddenly started speaking a mile a minute after I hung up didn't exactly give me much of an opportunity to think further either.   
"Oh I didn't know you were friends with that professor and his assistant! Why didn't you tell me earlier. Oh like, that's so cool. And you're on first names and everything! And they know your name! And and... like yeah I know the older guy is kind of weird or what ever, but I never realised you knew people of that sort. If I'd known that.. well, actually, I don't know.. But whatever, could you introduce me in person next time you go to see them, you will wont you?" And she went on like that for quiet a while, can't be sure exactly how long but I know that a Chansey came up to us after a while and started pushing us so we'd move as we'd been standing at the phone and not using it for too long. That didn't even shut Kandy up and it wasn't until I'd told her I wanted to go to bed that she finally did and realised there was something she wanted to do before she did as well.   
I was grateful for the quiet and didn't bother turning the light on as I entered our room. Plus the fact we were sharing with two other trainers who were even younger than me and already asleep put me off turning them on and waking them up. So fumbling and stumbling all over the place I got myself into my bed and tried to make myself comfortable enough to fall asleep. It wasn't easy and I was continually finding myself tossing and turning and just not being able to sit still long enough to fall asleep. I was still doing this when the door opened again and Kandy entered the room, for the first time in at least ten minutes I stopped moving around and pretended to sleep. I didn't want to talk just then. Kandy seemed to get the idea I was asleep and didn't bother coming over to me after a few whispered promptings to make sure I was actually asleep and went to bed herself.   
But my eyes were still opening and staring at the ceiling and fifteen more minutes passed before I felt it was safe to move as I could three separate breathing rhythms from the other people in the room and I sat up in my bed. Bad idea I realised as I clutched the top of my head and muttered some to myself, I'd forgotten I was sleeping on a top bunk and I'd hit my head on the roof. Sighing I lay back down and looked out the window next to my head. Thoughts were rushing around inside my head and I just couldn't sleep. Who was it that I'd bumped into when I was trying to leave the cave? Why'd I have to meet Tailor again..? Did Marcus know something he wasn't letting on or was he just genuinely curious as to why they'd called me Jamie? Past memories that I'd rather of forgotten were also flying through my head so fast it felt more like a whirlwind than anything else.   
I was still tossing about with both my thoughts and body when I decided I didn't want to sleep. Being careful this time as I sat up I ran my hands around over my bed looking for something in particular. Finding the circular object I placed my fingers tightly around it and muffling the electronic sound with my bed sheets I enlarged the Pokéball and released Are'ea. She yawned and looked up at me in somewhat surprise through a veil of sleep and went to make a noise before I put a finger to my mouth and she got the clue. Placing the empty Pokéball back under my pillow I rolled over again so I could look outside as Are'ea walked up close to my head and curled up at my chest and went back to sleep.   
The warmth of her smooth furred body and the familiar touch and smell of Are'ea in general finally lulled me to sleep as most everything else left my mind and I found myself no longer worrying about anything. I was smiling as I curled up pretty much to Are'ea, the last thing that I remember seeing is something black pass over the city buildings closest to the Center, but it wasn't anything to worry me and I forgot about it even as I drifted into a dreamless sleep.   
  
************************ A lot longer than the last one, no? Not much happened though, blah x.X Met Kandy again! And and.... I need to get him out of the city.. I've been cutting on conversations a lot as well haven I? ^.^ I can't be stuffed and this fits better anyways, plus, that'd make it hell of a lot longer x.X; *wavies* ********************* ********************* 


	11. 11

I spent the next week and a half in Celadon, mostly because Kandy had wanted to battle the pokemon Gym Leader and wouldn't hear of me leaving the city without her. So I got stuck with having to wait and watch as she battled her way through four junior trainers and then the Gym Leader herself. It was a good match as Kandy had been able to fill up her team of pokemon with what she said was her usual set that she used in battle.   
Personally I couldn't see why Kandy wanted to battle the Gym Leader the badge would be useless for the Johto Championships but she just shook her head and said she wanted to see how hard the Kanto Gym Leaders were before she decided if she'd want to compete for the league here. I just sighed and shrugged and went along with her, I knew that I wasn't going to sway her.  
One plus I guess with having to watch her battling was I got to get some good images to draw while watching. Bob had sent my stuff the day after my call and I'd recieved it all two days later. I'd rung him back after recieving my things and thanked both him and Marcus for looking after them and returning them to me. Saying this with Kandy fluttering around behind me trying to see Marcus was rather irritating but I mostly ignored her with some effort. That was something I rather disliked about her, everytime I wanted to use the video phone she'd ask why and who I was going to talk to and if I was going to speak to Marcus could she say hello. I had to continually make up lies to keep her from following me and just generally hanging around me as I talked on the phone.   
After Kandy had finally won her badge we had to stay in town for two more days so she could totally check out the Celadon City megamart and then we could leave. I guess that was ok as I got to restock on a couple of items I was running out of and there were some rather unusal items to see as well, a couple of which I bought. A small vile of sleeping powder from Butterfree spores was my faveourite though. Kandy also badgered me into buying three more pokeballs as she'd realised I only had the one pokemon and became rather insistant that I should get some more seeing as I was meant to be a pokemon trainer. I guess I can see the logic in that, I just hadn't been interested in having any more pokemon other than Are'ea, plus she got into this habit of becoming jealous whenever I gave the inclination of getting another one.   
It was the day we were leaving Celadon and had just left the city when Are'ea gave a cry of surprise and came running from somewhere off the track towards me and Kandy being chased by something a lot larger than her. She streaked straight between my legs and me and Kandy froze turning around to see a large cat pokemon bounding straight towards me. I bowled straight into me and sent me to the ground with itself ontop of me. Are'ea had run straight to Kandy and behind her legs and the cat that'd become slightly dazed as it'd hit me head on started back after her. Kandy got to move first though and within moments her Mankey had come out of its pokeball and she was ordering it to attack the cat while it was still mostly ontop of me. I can't say I was in anyway grateful about this as the large cat slashed more than a fair share of long scratches through my entire body. At least it finally got off of me as it went to attack the fighting pokemon.   
Getting up I watched as the Persian, as that's what it was, leaped away from a barrage of fury swipes from the Mankey before launching its own fury swipes back as a counter attack. The Persian was a higher level than the Mankey and despite the Mankey's type advantage it was taking a lot more damage than it was dealing out, it wasn't going to last that much longer.   
I shouted at Kandy just as the Mankey took a deafening blow as the Persian used a strong screech technique that sent the Mankey howling with pain as it held its ears. Kandy recalled her pokemon and was just about to send out another when I told her to stop and told Are'ea to get ready for an attack. She looked at me in a manner as if to ask if I was mad but I reassured her as best I could and putting her full trust in me got into a position ready to attack the Persian.   
The Persian was laying low to the ground looking from Kandy to me then to Are'ea and seemed to find the fact that it's previous play thing was about to battle it. I watched at the Persian carefully as it mocked Are'ea by starting to clean one of its paws but it was obviously still on high alert as its eyes stayed trained to the Vulpix.   
I knew close range attacks weren't going to work to well with the Persian, it was larger and faster than Are'ea and she'd have no chance, we had to depend on her fire abilities.   
"Are'ea wait for it to make the first move and stay absolutely still until I tell you to move ok?" She nodded without looking at me and the Persian seemed to realise it was time to move as it stopped its cleaning and got into a defensive position ready to defend or attack, depending what it felt like I guess. It became impatient quickly and launched the first attack, a weak scratch that was badly aimed. I gave Are'ea the cue at the very last moment and she dodged, the next moment she spun around and took a quick snap at the Persian's paw as it retreated again. She missed but that didn't matter. Though the next swipe of extended claws from the Persian cuffed her over the head and she went sliding along the ground a short distance. I swore but she got up onto all fours again and fanned her tails out.   
"Good Are'ea! Do that move we've been practicing, I'm sure you can do it!" She didn't give any movement or sound to show she heard me but started up an agility around and around the Persian in an attempt to confuse it and take it off the scent of what she was really doing. It worked and the Persian had to shake its head to get rid of the dizziness that was becoming plainly visible in its eyes.   
"Are'ea JUMP!" I shouted quickly as the Persian suddenly started taking massive swipes at the air around it hoping that at least one would hit home. I started calling out movements so she could dodge each of the attacks and she followed the orders exactly leaving the Persian with only hitting nothing more than air.   
"Ok, Are'ea Now!" and she leaped away from the Persian and just stood there, appearing to do nothing what so ever and the Persian faulted from confussion. I grinned and suddenly a turret of flames went spiraling out of Are'ea's mouth and towards the Persian. The Persian having had no prior warning and somewhat shell shocked from the sudden attack of flames took the full hit to its body and went sailing across the grass a good couple of meters. Are'ea cried out happily as she'd gotten her move down perfectly and I cheered along with her. Suddenly Kandy called out from behind me, "Throw a pokeball while it's dazed Damon!" So I did.   
Grabbing one of the empty pokeballs from my belt I enlarged it and threw it towards the dazed Persian in nearly the same moment. The pokeball bounced off the Persian's body and hit the ground before bursting open and sending a crimson red beam to its belly and sucking it inside. I waited a few moments as the pokeball shook then stopped moving as the indicator button went green to say I'd just caught a new pokemon.   
I couldn't help but grin and be somewhat happy at catching a pokemon again, I hadn't done it in a long time and it's a wonderful feeling. Are'ea quickly rushed over to the pokeball and picked it up in her mouth before racing back to me and dropping the pokeball at my feet. She scowled at it somewhat before turning her rapt attention up at me, she was most pleased with herself for finally getting her hidden flames attack down perfectly. I bobbed down to pick up both my new pokemon and Are'ea and was about to go running around like a mad man cheering when Kandy suddenly popped up infront of me grinning broadly. That stopped me dead. But she ran up closer to me and put her arms around me in a tight hug that somewhat squished Are'ea before letting go and starting to talk a mile a minute. She seemed more excited than I was and I faulted a moment just watching her bouncing around like an idiot and speaking quiet loudly about how I'd handled Are'ea and the Persian. Then she suddenly stopped and was in my face again and I had to take a step backwards as she looked down on me and asked how I'd taught my pokemon how to hide its flames like that. All I could do was stutter and make sounds instead of form full words so I wasn't exactly able to answer her. She didn't seem to mind exactly much and went back to moving around and talking loudly again.   
That went on for a good solid fifteen minutes more even after we'd started walking along the path again and even still after that she kept on bringing the subject up again and again and going over everything a million times. For me the novelty wore off quiet quickly and I couldn't see what exactly was so special about what I'd just done. Are'ea seemed to be of the same mind as me if not more so. I just sighed and decided to just let Kandy go on and on about whatever she wanted, I wasn't exactly listening anyway and just watching the countryside change instead as we walked.   
  
  
************* That ended crappy like and and...... I can't do fight scenes x.X; *wavies* better next time maybe.. ************ 


	12. 12

I'd decided we'd go to Cerulean and then from there we'd go north-west so we could go to the coast and then just walk along that for a while before we got back to somewhere I was more familiar with. That was unless of course Kandy suddenly came up with something else and then well, I don't know. I was going to think about that if it happened, not otherwise.   
To be truthful I didn't know where I wanted to go. There are a lot of places I can't go for various reasons and others I just wont. So really, returning probably isn't the best idea, but I can't help it, it's just somewhere I know and familiarity is comfortable or something... Oh well, whatever.   
Like most places when travelling to them by foot it took more than a couple of days. Nothing much especially interesting came up during the whole journey except that I found out my new pokemon had an utter and complete disliking to me for some reason, so he was left within his Pokéball and didn't get much enjoyment out of the journey in the least. Though I doubt he really cared all that much, when he was outside the Pokéball all he would do was sit, clean himself and sleep, so seeing as he could do all of that and more inside the Pokéball he stayed in it with the same result. Are'ea on the other hand continued to spend almost the entire time out of her Pokéball and strange enough following Kandy almost everywhere she went. Kandy never commented and didn't seem to mind all that much so I didn't really say anything myself though I couldn't help but feel somewhat jealous that my pokemon was spending more time with someone else instead of me. I convinced myself that it was just a novelty or something for Are'ea and she'd get over it soon enough and tried to ignore it as much as possible.   
Oh, also we did come across quiet a few trainers as we went, most competing in the Kanto Pokemon League and on their way to get badges from which ever towns they happened to come across. Kandy had the opportunity to battle her pokemon and took it each time, except at the beginning where she was somewhat insistent that I compete as well. That stopped as soon as she realised I had no inclining what so ever to battle unless out of necessity and when I convinced the trainer to battle her instead of me. She won most of the fights so there really wasn't much to complain about. I wouldn't say this was so much accounted to ability more so that most of the trainers we were coming across only had one or two badges and weren't exactly all that practiced with their pokemon except out of the usual basic manoeuvres and such, plus the fact most pokemon weren't above the mid twenties in levels and Kandy's were almost all well above that, at least double for most of them. So brute strength and experience won out in most fights. Which generally kept her in high spirits and also of mind that she'd come back to the Kanto area another time to compete in their league just because she thought it wouldn't be hard in the least.   
We arrived in Cerulean City and went straight to the Pokemon Center. Leaving Kandy's and my pokemon there Kandy dragged me off to check out the Sensational Cerulean Sisters or something like that at the city's Pokemon Gym. Seeing as Kandy is bigger than me I couldn't do much to stop her, so I got to see my second Pokemon Gym within the Kanto world.   
I couldn't help but feel I was in a giant aquarium and seeing as I don't know how to swim all that well I had the distinct feeling of unease as we walked around. I kept imagining the glass walls shattering and flooding the hall giving me an early and watery death. Not happy thoughts.   
But we eventually got out of the maze of water and into a main hall area that turned out to be the main arena for Gym battles. It was nice enough with bleachers running up all the walls and a giant swimming pool in the middle with floating platforms scattered around in the water that were bobbing around happily. There weren't many people there much at the moment, but a battle was going on in the water. A Dewgong was battling against a Pidgey in what I'd call a rather unfair match up as that gives the Pidgey about a one in a million chance of actually winning. This was proven only a couple of moments later as the Dewgong unleashed a particularly powerful aurora beam and the Pidgey was blasted out of the air and out of the arena. I watched a red beam shoot out and recall the fainted pokemon and from somewhere above us an announcer say "Pidgey is no longer able to battle, 2-0. Violet is declared the winner!" Then there was some static and it cut out. I looked at Kandy but she'd disappeared and looking back in the direction of where the battle had been going on I watched her run up to a group of three girls that were chattering awfully loud together.   
Sighing I moved over to one of the seats nearby not really wanting to meet anymore of Kandy's friends and watched as the defeated trainer made somewhat of a hasty retreat out of the area. I couldn't help but muffle some laughter at the expression to the persons face as they raced past. My attention went back to Kandy and what I could only guess to be the Gym Leader and her friends, as the three girls had been up the other end of the arena earlier, as a particular loud squeal of some kind came from their direction.   
Thinking this'd probably take quiet a while and wondering why on earth Kandy had even asked me to come in the first place I got out my sketchbook and went about some drawing idly. Not much was coming to mind as to what to draw and I couldn't help but find that slightly irritating. Also the contant screechy noises coming from the direction of the collection of girls was more than a little off putting. Grumbling to myself I grabbed up my stuff and snuck out, which was probably pointless as I doubt anyone would of noticed me leaving.   
Deciding most intelligently I wanted to get lost in the maze of aquariems I did just that and spent at least half an hour trying to find my way out of the place. Eventually succeeding in that I made a B-line straight back to the Pokemon Center. I wanted Are'ea back, I can't help but feel bare without the knowledge of knowing she's close by.   
Pretty much ignoring everyone and thing as I walked in through the sliding doors of the Center I went straight up to the front desk and went about waiting for the Nurse Joy to finish up with the person next to me who she was talking to in an exceptionally stern voice that I hadn't really heard from a Nurse Joy before. Turning to look at who it was exactly she was telling off I automatically turned my head and body away and had the strongest urge to start whistling. Strange thing that isn't it? Anyway, it was Antoni's friend that I'd met that time when I'd left Are'ea alone in my body. I quickly glanced around to make sure Antoni wasn't actually here as well but I needn't of bothered as from overhearing the argument that was becoming rather heated between what ever his name was and Joy, Nurse Joy said something like, "Well you shouldn't of been travelling alone in the first place through that area! It's known to be dangerous and a trainer of your age should of known better than that!"   
Most of what Antoni's friend said after that I'd rather much prefer not to comment on, but it didn't take all that long before he was removed from the Pokemon Center by an Officer Jenny and a fairly easy guess would be that he wasn't just going to be given a warning.   
The Nurse Joy seemed somewhat still flustered after that and snapped at me before I even really got a chance to say anything but apologised a moment later and giving her a moment to calm herself I tried again to ask about my pokemon. She smiled and said, "Oh yes, just give me a moment young sir and I'll give them to you," and she was gone less than a moment before returning with a tray with two pokeballs in small holders. I said my thanks and turned a little red as she commented on how well I'd been keeping my Vulpix before I got to get away.   
As I was turning to leave the Pokemon Center I realised I didn't have anywhere to go. Which utterly stumped me. Mainly as for the last couple of weeks I'd been having Kandy boss me about and she always had somewhere she wanted to go and almost always dragged me along with her. So for the first time in what felt like forever I had a chance to make choices of my own as to where I wanted to go. A thought that came to mind was to ask Nurse Joy about Antoni's friend and what exactly it was that was wrong with all that... but I really didn't want any of that anger coming in my direction as to whatever he'd done. But another thought struck me and I realised I wanted to meet that Marowak again.   
So deciding I might as well risk it I went back up to the desk and waited for Nurse Joy to notice me again before asking her about Antoni's friends pokemon. She visibly bristled somewhat and shot a glare at me so intense I wanted to just dig a hole on the spot and burry myself. I mumbled something about just wanting to know if they were ok as I'd battled him before and knew he had some good pokemon and just wanted to make sure there was nothing wrong with them or something. Which was pretty much true, I had battled him before and I'd seen some of him pokemon before. So you can't say I was lying. That softened her up somewhat but she told me that she'd given him back his pokemon already and they were all in fine health, she'd just mentioned the fact they'd been in extremely poor health when brought to the Center and that'd started the argument. Mostly as she'd been most annoyed to see a trainer battle their pokemon so hard before giving them any sort of medical aid. I inquired about wether or not there'd been a Marowak in the pokemon she'd healed but she shook her head and said no. That was annoying but I smiled and said my thanks again before turning to leave once more... and for a second time I stopped. Quickly calling back Nurse Joy I asked if I could pick up Kandy's pokemon and she agreed quiet readily after I gave her a list of the pokemon that should be there and a description of Kandy to verify that I was a friend of hers.   
This time I got to leave completely from the Pokemon Center and was about to go searching for Kandy when she bumped into me. About to run past having not actually noticed me I grabbed her arm and pulled her around so that she could see it was me and she didn't need to keep going. That made her stop but she was continuing to jump from foot to foot with excitement. I didn't get a chance to open my mouth and ask what was so exciting before she blurted out she'd just seen a friend from a long time ago called Bryce and that he was heading towards some town I'd never heard of that was somewhere north and among the mountains and he'd invited her to come with him. Of course she'd said she'd go, but only if I got to come along as well, it seemed that Kandy had posted a claim on me or something and that I had to go everywhere she did. Sighing and not being really anywhere near as thrilled as I was meant to be in accordance to how Kandy was bouncing about I asked a dumb question and asked why exactly this was so thrilling.   
"Oh you dummy! You don't know anything do you? We're.. we're... We're going to the capital of the worlds Best pokemon trainers! All, and I mean ALL the best trainers go there at some point. If you've been there it's like a declaration you're meant to be great and like, we're going to go! Oh this is like sooo cool! You just have to come!"   
I still didn't see this as being all that overly great. I would be going with Kandy and one of her friends to some place in the mountains filled with people who would be extremely pumped up with ego. Not my idea of the perfect place. "And if I don't go with you..." "Oh no, you can't do that! You have to come! I'll make you come!" And she gave me some sort of look I couldn't actually tell meant. Sighing I caved in. Well, she'd have someone else to bug on the way at least and maybe I could get lost in the mountains... or even better, she could get lost and I'd never have to see her again. A smile flicked on my face for a moment and Kandy must of thought this was because I'd decided going to this place with her friend was a good idea as she suddenly started beaming all over again and bouncing about like a loony.   
"Oh nearly forgot!" and she was about to run into the Pokemon Center again before I just managed to grab the sleeve of her top and pulled her back again, "I've already got your pokemon..." She spun around, hugged me so tightly I felt like I was being squished then started to drag me through the city to where ever it was her friend was at.   
We stopped in front of the police station and I raised an eyebrow at Kandy but she just grinned and started dragging me up the steps to go inside. Suddenly a pit seemed to of started growing in my gut and a bad feeling was swimming about inside of me. It got worse as Kandy, continuing to pull me everywhere by my backpack, turned us around a corner and there sitting with his back to us was a light green haired guy cut rather short so you could see the back of his pale neck. The intense urge to just start running sprouted somewhere deep inside of me but my feet had also decided to turn to lead and as Kandy was still pulling me towards the guy I stumbled and basically fell into the chair next to him. Of course, seeing as the back of the chair had been facing me I did an all mighty flip fall onto my backside on the floor. That hurt rather severely as my whole body was jolted and I found I'd just bruised more places than I could count. The ringing that started in my ears at the sound of someone laughing their head off didn't help my pride in the least. Turning a brilliant red I turned around and looked up at the face of Antoni's friend. Looking behind him I could also see Kandy muffling her laughter with a hand at her mouth. So being embarrassed and wanting that pit that'd been in my stomach a moment ago to be below me now I got myself up as quickly and painlessly as possibly and went about finding a spot on the wall to be extreme interest.   
"So this must be your friend then Kandy? You didn't tell me he was an acrobat as well," he sneered and I would of given most anything to of just turned around and slammed him one in the nose. But for more than one reason I didn't, least of which being in a police station. Then there was the fact that Bryce was a good couple of years and inches taller than me, then we had Kandy being friends with him and last but not least, I would be spending the next couple of days or more likely weeks with this person. So choosing to ignore the comment I looked back at him and introduced myself, "I'm Damon, Damon Rannoch and I guess you're Bryce." He bowed at me and smirked, "But of course, the most brilliant of the best tough type pokemon trainer, Brave Bryce!" I choked on air and looked at that spot on the wall again for a moment as I attempted at trying not to laugh like a maniac. I know some trainers like to think highly of themselves and give themselves titles and everything, but yeesh, that was pathetic and rather bad. Having gotten rid of my smile and everything I asked about that little part of his title, "What exactly do you mean by tough type? That's not an official type of pokemon..." "Well of course it's not. It's just that I only train the toughest of the tough pokemon." That didn't exactly answer my question very well, but Kandy helped, "Bryce mostly trainers ground, rock and fighting type pokemon. He thinks because they generally have a good sort of defence about them that they're the best type of pokemon to use." I guess that sort of made sense.   
There was a short pause of silence before Bryce moved around the plastic seats and over to Kandy, "So shall we leave then? Jenny said I could go." Kandy grinned and clapped her hands, "Yes of course! Damon's got my pokeballs so we can leave straight away if we like." Bryce looked back at me a moment with a slight frown before it quickly disappeared with a smile, "Well Damon, do be careful of those chairs this time around wont you? We don't really need another demonstration of your wonderful aerobic skills," and with that he moved around the corner and out of sight with Kandy in step beside him.   
This was going to be a looong trip... yet Bryce hadn't remembered me from the last time we met so I guess that was one plus.   
  
**************** I'm getting shorter and more pointless with my chapters, positive isn't it? Well, I guess not so pointless, this works out better as I can fit a few things in that I was having some what trouble with doing *shrugs* **************** 


	13. 13

As it turned out, it wasn't such a long trip.   
There was a Pidgeot flying service that took you the last part of the journey, all you had to do was get to the edge of the mountains and find the place.   
Yet it did still feel like a very long time between the time we left Cerulean and actually arrived at the Pidgeot Flight Centre. Bryce's attitude towards me didn't exactly improve and he was much worse than Marcus. At least Marcus had had some good points about him. Bryce as far as I could see had none at all. He was an extremely bad and boastful trainer for starters. He also took quiet a lot of pride of pointing out the fact he had over forty pokemon while I only had two, one of which wouldn't listen to a word of what I said. I bet I could of changed that if it hadn't been for the fact I couldn't switch minds with Are'ea or spend any real alone time with my new pokemon to get it used to me. With having had Kandy and now Bryce around me all the time I hadn't gotten a single chance to do so.   
Also with another Bryce and Marcus comparison, when I was with Marcus there was Bob and Marcus hadn't a mind at all to show off in front of Bob, where as Bryce was always showing off in front of Kandy. This was extremely irritating and annoying and made me continually wish I looked older than I did. Also along with the showing off Bryce liked making big points about things he could do that I couldn't, namely catch strong pokemon was one. Outwardly I just bared it because I didn't want to make a scene in front of Kandy but inwardly I was saying things I probably shouldn't of about him. A large portion of which to do with his pokemon were that he only had strong pokemon through trades, not because he trained them well. Also I could bet I'd caught pokemon twice as good as his in my past, I just hadn't chosen to hoard them like most trainers. I wasn't about to explain this to Bryce so I just continued to keep my mouth shut.   
Ok actually, there was one good point about Bryce, now that Bryce was hanging off of Kandy at every given opportunity, when ever I had Are'ea out she'd hang around me instead of her. Which I greatly appreciated seeing as I wasn't getting much desired company despite the fact I was travelling with two other pokemon trainers.   
Most of the time during our travelling I hung back away from the two of them except for the few times that Kandy made me walk up next to her, but gratefully she didn't do that too often and that was probably due to Bryce. Oh well.   
At least during the trip I had one use, I was the only person with a suitable pokemon for starting fires and seeing as we were travelling mostly over hills and going towards mountains capped with snow this was especially useful.   
It was as we were coming up closer to the Pidgeot place that I overheard one of Kandy and Bryce's conversations that actually caught my interest for one. Kandy had been talking to Bryce about what he'd been doing lately and how his friends were and that sort of thing when Bryce mentioned that he'd spent a long time training with Antoni before they'd decided to split up for a while and train separately. But they were going to meet at the Pidgeot place or once we got into the mountain city.   
I froze on the spot at this news and Are'ea bumped into the back of my legs, which made her look up at me most indignantly. Bryce and Kandy hadn't noticed I'd stopped and were still walking forwards, they were a good couple of dozen meters away before my brain kicked back in motion and I had to run to catch up to them. Bryce made a wonderful witty comment about me falling over or something as he and Kandy noticed me running to catch up. I did what I usually did around Bryce and tuned his voice out and mumbled something under my breath that I doubt either of them caught about what'd happened and we continued on our way.   
Now with me feeling sick in my stomach and Bryce being quiet happy with the fact he was going to be meeting his friend again, probably thought it'd be great to have another friend to gang up on me with and Kandy was just generally excited about travelling to the mountain city and the ride we were going to take to get there. I'm sure I head her mention a couple of times about the Pidgeot being twice the size of a normal one and having an almost complete set of white feathers instead of the usual browns and cream with the pink and yellow crest and tail feathers. That was also another thing that was worrying me, how was I going to ride this bird and make sure my hands didn't come anywhere close to its head. I'd only been a bird type pokemon once before and flight wasn't something I even came close to getting the hang of. So the idea of suddenly switching minds with a Pidgeot that was in mid flight more than a couple of hundred meters above the ground, and probably more that, was not something that appealed to me in the least. Also the fact I'd have me upon my back that'd suddenly have the birds mind within it and what'd happen with that didn't help much.   
I was starting to think I should just turn back and find somewhere else to go as we were going those last couple of miles to where Bryce thought the Pidgeot Flying Centre place was when I realised I couldn't do that. There wasn't exactly a real path we'd been following and most of the scenery looked the same as the rest that we'd gone past. So I had no way of getting back, plus the extra fact that it'd been snowing occasionally over the last couple of days didn't help my chances of getting somewhere I'd know before I froze to death or something. So options were, get lost or stay and meet well, I don't know and didn't want to think about it, so I stopped thinking about it and tried to concentrate more on this mountain city that I should of known the name of by now seeing as both Kandy and Bryce had said it a million times. Personally I was somewhat surprised I'd never heard of the place before, especially with it being part of the north and I'd been to most of the north during my travels. Seeing as I'd been walking a way back from Bryce and Kandy I hadn't been really hearing everything they'd been saying so I hadn't heard how Bryce'd found out about the place and knew how to get there and everything. Especially seeing as it was meant to be a place for great trainers I couldn't see how Bryce had found out about it.   
We arrived at where the place was meant to be in the middle of a snowstorm and it wasn't there.   
It was two hundred meters to the left, heh.   
So covered from head to toe in fluffy, cold and wet snow we crashed in through the large wooden doors of the entrance to the Pidgeot Flight Centre. All we could see right then was a large desk with a wooden wall behind it, actually almost everything was built of wood. Sitting in an overly plush chair behind the desk was a short stout woman who looked up as we entered, she didn't smile or frown or really give an facial expression before she looked back down at what ever it was she'd been reading before we arrived. "Real polite that is.." muttered Bryce from next to me and I had to agree.   
"Please remove as much of the snow as possible where you are, we don't need your wet footprints right through the lodge. Thank you," came the curt voice of the woman at the desk, she didn't even look up to speak. Kandy was most happy to do this without complaint but Bryce did a good deal and I guess I put in my fair share.   
Finally free of most of the snow I realised for the first time it was extremely warm inside the building and walked up to the desk and the woman behind it, both Kandy and Bryce followed along though Bryce's steps were somewhat more hurried than Kandy's as Kandy was looking around at the decor. Bryce got to speak before me, but I guess I really wouldn't of known what to say anyway. Halfway through saying something though the woman cut in and recited something she'd obviously said a couple of hundred times, "Welcome to the Wings Lodge, the only accommodation in the world that comes along with the unique flying experience gained from flying at the Pidgeot Flying Centre. We expect you to act orderly at all times while using our facilities and we reserve the right to relieve any of out guests of their accommodation as we see fit. $200 per night, per person, twin share, two meals included with each night pre-packaged. Flights have been cancelled due to bad weather until tomorrow or later date." She finally took that moment to look up at the three of us, her sharp eyes scanning each of us in turn. I couldn't help but feel somewhat self conscious though I had nothing really to be embarrassed about except maybe the fact I had odd socks on, but those weren't visible as I'd tucked my trouser cuffs into my shoes to keep my ankles warm.   
Bryce was giving the woman his money and talking about something else I didn't hear as Kandy commented, "isn't this such a nice looking place Damon? You don't get buildings like this in the city..." She was right about that, you don't get many places almost completely made of wood in the city. How they didn't have wood rot here was the first thing really to pop into my head though, especially with all the snow and such. But I shrugged it off as I realised the woman was looking at me sternly and that it was my turn to pay for my room or whatever. I was grabbing my backpack off my back when Kandy stepped past and grinned, "If you don't mind Damon, I think I'll pay for both of us, I still owe you some money remember?" Yeah, as a matter of fact I did, though only because she reminded me, "Well that means you only have 500 more then." She poked her tongue out at me but continued to smile as she picked up the room key for both of us and I was thinking where was my one when she said that we'd be sharing. Bryce didn't seem all that impressed but he smiled anyway and I was wondering why when he suddenly said, "Antoni's here already and he's already made a booking for me, so I'm sharing with him anyway."   
My stomach dropped past my toes somehow.   
Antoni was here? Like, right here in this very establishment? We'd be sleeping under the same roof and I'd have no way of getting out of here... oh this was seriously not good. I think I'd gone white or something as Kandy gave me a worried look and asked if I was feeling well. I squeaked an, "Yeah, I'm fine," but I don't think she totally believe me as she made a note of walking beside me as we all went around the desk to see the rest of the place and check out our rooms... and meet Antoni.   
I couldn't help but be surprised by the fact that as we got past that wall that lady was sitting in front of there was a huge room with stone fire larger than I'd ever seen before, cemented between the logs of the wall. Everything was wood furnished and I really mean everything. Though there were a few stone things as well, the thing you noticed above everything was the wood and also the smell of burning pine. The room was divided into a couple of levels and an entire wall was little more than glass panelling showing a near perfect white mountain side, pretty view but it also gave note to the fact this place was built on the edge of a cliff. There were some wooden tables and chairs set up as well as closer to the large fire some comfy looking couches and recliner chairs. There wasn't a tv in sight but there was a jukebox against one of the walls and a very big collection of books that were visible all around the place. Everything also seemed rather Christmassy as red and green were the favourite colours it seemed to decorate things with, probably as it went well with the browns of the wood. Beside us running along the wall that blocked the view of this from the entrance, was a stair case that led up to a second level that ran around the side wall and halfway along the other until it came to the fireplace. There was a nicely carved banister along the edge of all that to keep people from falling off or anything as well. But anyway, on that level were doors that obviously lead into the rooms and such as they had small plaques on each of them that said the numbers.   
Everything was very posh, that's about all else I can say, I'd never really been into expensive accommodation and I felt like I was on some sort of holiday it was just that nice. Kandy suddenly went running past me and up the staircase, "Come on Damon, lets check out the room!" she grinned and waved excitedly but didn't bother waiting for me as she checked her key once then went hurriedly along the pathway looking for the door that matched. She'd already reached the end and found our room, which was the end one, and was opening the door before I had the inclination to actually move after her. Looking beside me at Bryce I realised he was impressed as I had been at the place, I grinned to myself and started going up the stairs in an attempt to go after Kandy before Bryce realised everyone was leaving him. "Hey! Wait up for me!" he complained before quickly racing up the stairs ahead of me, I didn't mind too much though and let him pass.   
A thought came to mind that this place obviously didn't hold a large amount of people at once and I couldn't help but think that most likely it was only me, Kandy, Bryce and Antoni as well as whoever owned the place aside from the woman that were even at the lodge. I guessed that didn't matter too much and was moving along the passageway towards the very last one and the room I'd be staying in when I noticed Bryce banging on a door two down from my room. I smirked a little to myself, they must only give out one key per room, meaning that Bryce had to get Antoni's attention to get him to open the door.   
I quickly slinked past Bryce as he continued to pound the door to his room and secretly wished that the woman would come out and ask what was happening before kicking both Antoni and Bryce out into the snow. Though I guess Kandy wouldn't be that happy about that and probably would make us go out with them, sigh.   
I'd just made my way into Kandy and my room when I saw the door swing open to the other room and a somewhat annoyed looking Antoni glare at Bryce before they went out of sight as I fully entered my room. It was big, not as big as the main room but still large in its own right. Again there were windows along a complete wall and I realised as I looked around that one of the walls actually folded almost completely away that connected the main bedroom and the living room. That was different. Kandy suddenly appeared behind me and I realised I'd walked right past the bathroom and backtracked a couple of steps to look inside. "It's nice isn't it?" Kandy smiled as she walked up to the window wall and leaned her hands against it, "Pity we can't see the view properly with all this snow, bet it's real nice though."   
Kandy turned around still smiling but the smile got larger as she seemed to look past me and she suddenly waved her arms, "Hi Antoni! Good to see ya again!" I cringed and was in no way willing to turn around and see Antoni standing behind me, though maybe he hadn't noticed I was standing dead in the way of seeing into the room... doubt it, seriously doubted it. Kandy rushed past me still with that smile and as she brushed past me she turned my body just enough to catch a glance at Antoni's face and he was looking only at Kandy, and it was happy! Then I remembered, Antoni probably didn't know I was Damon Rannoch, he knew me as another name.. he probably hadn't realised just yet who I was as he'd only seen the back of my head. I would of loved to of been able to just keep my back to Antoni for the rest of the time we'd be around him so he wouldn't know who I was but that probably wouldn't of worked too well.   
Kandy didn't help either as she said, "Oh, and Antoni! Say hello to Damon, I don't actually think you did last time you saw him, hopefully you'll be a little more hospitable than the last time I saw you together." I guess I hadn't turned around in time as Kandy prompted me again, "Come on Damon." I wished I could tie a sock around Kandy's mouth as I slowly turned around and looked rather low instead of at Antoni's face, I could just guess what it looked like and when my eyes flickered up for just a moment I'd guessed perfectly. His face was hate filled to say the least, "Uh, hi Antoni... good to see you again..." I pretty much mumbled and went about walking away from him with the nicest pretext I could think of, "Uh, nice rooms here aren't they...?" and I made as quickly as I could towards the bedroom. Looking around I was overjoyed to see that there was actually a double and a single bed. I really didn't know what we were going to do with sleeping arrangements previously, not that I would of objected too badly with sleeping on the sofa, it actually had looked more comfortable than the bed.   
Kandy appeared all of a sudden once more at my side and was pulling me back into the main room, "Why'd you do that? You can look at the room later." I resisted her as best I could but she was bigger than me, I hadn't grown a couple of feet taller in those few minutes, so she dragged me back into the room and now Bryce was there with Antoni. "Hey, our rooms nicer than yours. Though ours doesn't do this," and Bryce pulled back the wall to the bedroom most of the way before shutting it again. "But that makes it bigger I guess... oh well," he shrugged and looked at Antoni then at me as he noticed the look Antoni was giving me. Something seemed to dawn in his head at that moment. "Oh! I knew I remembered you from somewhere! You're that little weird kid who was talking in Vulpix or something!" He could of mentioned the fact that his pokemon had also attacked Antoni's and his other one, but that probably wasn't something he wanted to say in front of Kandy, I grinned despite myself. Kandy looked from one to the next to the next of us looking rather blank herself, "What?"   
Antoni mumbled something that I doubt anyone caught and Bryce obviously thought he should explain, "Well, I've met Damon before, me and Antoni met him while we were still training together, he was kinda wondering about and acting sorta weird before we approached him and then he just started babbling to us in Vulpix and wouldn't speak a word of English." I really didn't have anything to comment on this, but I also wanted to mention the fact that Bryce's own pokemon had started attack his others, I didn't though as Kandy shrugged and grinned once more. "Oh yes, I've seen him do that as well, he's rather good isn't he? Aren't you Damon?" and she looked at me as if being able to speak Vulpix was something worth getting a medal for.   
Bryce just scowled and Antoni decided it was time to change the subject, I don't think he really wanted a confrontation between me and him with two people watching who probably wouldn't have a clue as to what it was about. Plus he'd probably gotten the same warning as us about behaving properly or be thrown out. "You been looking after my Rhyhorn Bryce? Because I've made sure to keep your Marowak in good health, though it doesn't do that much does it?" Antoni commented to Bryce and I finally found out what'd happened to Bryce's Marowak, the one I wanted to talk to. Bryce seemed to of gone a little flustered, "Yes of course I've been looking after your Rhyhorn, it's nearly a Rhydon actually. And I still don't think it was an even swap, my Marowak was a higher level than your Rhyhorn-" "Yes but my Rhyhorn actually preformed attacks on command unlike your Marowak," Antoni smirked at Bryce. To which Bryce decided it was time for another subject change, "So where do you know Damon from Antoni?" Antoni blinked once and looked at me and mouthed the word 'Damon' before mumbling, "A couple of years ago," and obviously wouldn't expand anymore on it than that. I also made no effort to put something in so the conversation died again.   
Kandy finding this most annoying tried again to get a conversation lasting more than a couple of tosses, "So how long have you been waiting for us Antoni, hope not too long," and she put on a smile to try and liven the mood. Antoni looked back at her and smiled slightly back, "not long, only a couple of hours." "What you sleep all that time Antoni?" Bryce interjected and Antoni shot him a look that made Bryce shut up but still continue to grin triumphant none the less.   
"When's food served?" I spoke out loud for the first time. Kandy looked at me in surprise and so did the other two but then a fifth voice joined the conversation, "Food'll be served in a moment if you kids don't mind, just down stairs at one of the tables, do come down before it gets cold wont you?" Antoni turned to look around behind him but even I only caught a glimpse of an old looking man walking away. Shrugging I waited until Antoni moved before leaving the room and going downstairs, everyone else doing the exact same thing.  
The meal was exceptionally good compared to what it looked like, not exactly appetising is all I'm going to say about it though. But at least I was full and it was late, I had an excuse to just go to bed and I had every mind to actually do that. So excusing myself before anyone else from the table I left Kandy, Bryce and Antoni talking to each other to go to my room.   
Once inside my room I shut the door quietly and went about releasing Are'ea straight away, I hadn't been very willing to release her while we were travelling as it was just easier to have her within her Pokéball and I really shouldn't say this but I hadn't thought of releasing her since arrival, probably something to do with Antoni. But now I was alone in my room and I thought it was time she got to stretch her legs.   
Are'ea was most surprised at being released somewhere warm and dry for once after having to reform outside of a Pokéball into the cold snow so often over the past couple of days. But she adjusted in no time and had made herself comfortable on the sofa looking outside to the snow falling lazily past the window. Sighing and rolling my eyes I decided upon taking the opportunity to have a hot shower and did just that. Coming out fifteen minutes later and being shocked to find Kandy already back in the room. "Well at least this time you had the decency for a towel," and giggled as I turned red and went straight back into the bathroom without a backwards glance and didn't come out again till I was fully dressed. "I didn't really think you'd be here.. so excuse me," I huffed somewhat but she just grinned at me from her position next to Are'ea on the sofa. Sighing I sat down on the other side of Are'ea and looked at Kandy as I lightly stroked Are'ea's fur, which she didn't mind in the least, "Well there a reason why you're up here or what?" Kandy rolled her eyes, "Thought that'd be obvious enough, what's up between you an Antoni? I forgot to ask about that last time" I shrugged nonchalantly, "just something that happened a long long time ago, it's no big deal," which was an outright lie and Kandy could tell. But all she did was sigh, "Well fine, if you don't want to talk about it just say so, but it's obviously not nothing. The way he looks at you it's as if he'd rip your throat out at any given opportunity and probably enjoy it. Which isn't anything like him at all." "Yeah I know," it was out of my mouth before I knew it and Kandy was looking at me oddly. I decided Are'ea's fur was much more interesting than Kandy's face just then and mumbled something that got a "what?" reply from Kandy. "Sorry, I meant that like, uh... No, you're right, I really would prefer not talk about it, maybe another time..." She made an odd sound and I glanced up to see a concerned looking face watching me and my eyes flickered back down over Are'ea. "You know, it's ok if you told me, it couldn't possibly be that bad, and you know I wouldn't tell anyone else," Kandy had her hand to the side of my head before I flinched and I suddenly fell of the couch with a hard thud. "No, no, it's ok," I muttered as I moved further back away from Kandy, though getting myself off the ground before I did. "Oh. I forgot. Sorry Damon," Kandy bit her lip and stood up, walking over to the bedroom she looked over her shoulder a moment, "Uh, do you mind if I take the bed and you take the couch? Or you can have the smaller bed if you want, you'll just have to wait a while as I want to have a shower as well and everything.." I shrugged, "No I don't really mind.." She smiled again and disappeared into the bedroom for a couple of minutes before appearing for a moment before disappearing again this time into the bathroom where she stayed for over twenty minutes.   
During that time I made myself comfortable on the sofa after moving a somewhat disgruntled Are'ea so I could actually sit on it with my legs stretched out. And I took up the hobby she'd been enjoying, just watching the snow fall through the window over the white landscape. Are'ea looked up at me a moment and smiled in her way before jumping dead center into my lap and curling up as close to my chest as she could possibly get and faked going to sleep. I knew better than to think she was actually asleep, her breathing was nearly exactly as it should be but looking at her eyes they were just ever so slightly open and twitched every now and then. I smiled myself and scratched her behind the ears and under the chin for the next while happy enough to just do that. It was nice to be warm and comfortable in silence for a change.   
Kandy, finished with the bathroom and releasing a large amount of steam as she opened the door walked past me and stopped, "I'm gonna go back out into that main room thing again for a while to spend some time with Bryce and Antoni, I doubt you're coming but I'll ask anyway," I'd already started shaking my head and she shrugged, "knew it, anyway. Will you still be awake when I come back or what? I don't know how long I'll be so that probably doesn't help.. but it's getting dark isn't it. And I don't think they use much in the way of electricity here so yeah, I'll probably see you soon even if you are asleep." I just shrugged and didn't really say much, "I dunno, I'll probably be asleep..." "Ok then, I'll see you tomorrow then," She grinned and went to pat my head but thought better of it and left, closing the door silently behind her.   
I sighed to myself a while after she'd left and looked down at Are'ea, "You know you can stop faking it, I know you're still awake.." she opened a single eye up at me and smiled before yawning ever so slightly and closing it again, "Oh fine, be like that then" but I smiled none the less. My mind suddenly went buzzing and not wanting to keep it all inside my head I went about telling Are'ea all about the day and what'd happened so far. She listened but didn't interrupt, only stirring occasionally to show that she was still awake, though I doubt I noticed half of them as I was more into what I was saying. I hadn't had a good chance to just talk for a while, always having Kandy about and more recently Bryce had left me with little time on my own and I'd had to keep everything inside my head. Which was a waste as Are'ea was always a good listener and seemed to quiet often pick up on things I missed.   
Other thoughts started up buzzing about in my head and I went silent for a while thinking once more. I really wanted to at least see that Marowak that Bryce had owned. But there was no chance now that I could see it, it belonged to Antoni now and I couldn't go near him on my own and I'd look stupid asking to see the pokemon for no apparent reason. And it's not like as if I could explain that it had looked at me oddly and that's why I wanted to 'talk' to it, not just see it. Argh, it was annoying. I was thinking over various ways I might be able to get Antoni to show me the pokemon but nothing would give me the opportunity to speak to it like I wanted. Sighing I was about to give up when I suddenly let my mind go blank at a sound from outside the door and I turned my head to see if Kandy had come back yet, but it wasn't her, it was one of the other rooms and someone leaving that.   
Suddenly it struck me and I had a plan.   
  
************************************* woooo, a plan, blah blah, you know I've been writing this almost totally between 1 and 6am? just a lovely fact I'm deciding to share for no particular reason ^.^; More conversations! Look! and yeah.. You ain't gonna find out what happened between Antoni and Damon for a while as well so ner! Hehe, umm, that was longer than usual wasn't it? *shrugs* well me go on now! so yeah! *wavies* ********************************************************* 


	14. 14

It didn't take long to talk it over with Are'ea despite the fact I kept freezing at the slightest sounds, Kandy should of been coming back soon as it was fairly dark now and I really didn't want her walking in with me talking to Are'ea. Especially with what we were talking about.   
It was only a couple of minutes actually after I'd stopped talking it over with Are'ea when Kandy walked into the room quietly. There was no light to turn on so she had to feel her way along the wall to the bedroom. She didn't bother coming over or speaking to me, probably thought I was asleep or something. The bedroom door clicked closed and I could hear her moving around inside but I'd already decided with Are'ea we would give it a good fifteen minutes before we moved. I wanted to make sure Kandy was asleep, though hopefully not everyone would be by the time I could do what I wanted.   
It was nerve racking those minutes as we waited, I'd already moved Are'ea off my lap and put her beside me, I needed her to be as drowsy as possible for this to work. I didn't really want to have to resort to using my Butterfree Powder, it'd costed me more than I bet it was worth.   
Finally she'd stopped moving around and making noises for ten minutes and I decided that was enough time and slowly and quietly got off the sofa, trying my best not to disrupt Are'ea too much where she dozed in a half and half state of sleep and awakeness. Lucky for me I'd dropped my stuff next to the sofa so all I had to do was lean over backwards to collect a couple of items I needed and stuffed them in my pockets before going back to Are'ea. Now this was going to be annoying, being as careful as I could possibly be, I picked up Are'ea from the sofa trying my hardest not to move her too much. Then I started walking even slower towards the bedroom door. It was a clear straight path to the door which I was most grateful, now was a problem if there was some sort of lock on the bedroom door because I did know there was one on the bathroom. But as I stretched out a hand and turned the knob of the door I didn't find any sort of resistance and still trying to hold Are'ea without really waking her fully up I opened the door as silently as possible.   
Kandy was asleep, I could hear her breathing softly and it was coming from the direction of the single bed, well that worked ok, that was closer to me than the double one and it also meant I wasn't going to have to figure out where she was actually sleeping on the bed. So I started to make my way over to her, now starting to have trouble with holding Are'ea still as my hands were shaking just a little. I was almost to Kandy when I suddenly stubbed my toe on something hard and swore rather loudly, that was not the least bit helpful. At least the rest of the way was perfectly fine and I didn't hit my toes on anything else. Finding the bed next to me I put Are'ea carefully down on it and bobbed down next to her so I could whisper, "Ok, remember that the powder is in my left pocket and your Pokéball is in the right, you know what to do right?" She nodded still half asleep and I smiled. Ok, now was the tricky part.   
I put my hands forwards and touched Are'ea's head. There was that single moment of nothingness then I suddenly felt extremely drowsy as Are'ea had been, the same effect would happen to Are'ea. There are a couple of complications with switching like this. When you switch minds the body's state still stays the same, so despite the fact you could be awake when switching with someone asleep you'd more than likely end up asleep on the other side like the other person had been and they'll end up the opposite and suddenly be awake.   
I could sense Are'ea dimly nearby shaking off her own sleepiness and getting her own bearings on the situation from a new perspective. But it didn't take her too long and I could feel my own hands picking me up gently and lifting me towards what I hopped was Kandy. A moment later and I could feel just dully my paws being moved and suddenly I was out of it.  
I knew it might take a few moments but I couldn't exactly judge how long it would take between the switch and I'd be awake again. The first thing I noticed though was something was rather close to me and as I blinked my eyes open slowly I realised my face was touching the face I had now. I yelped a little in surprise as Are'ea backed away with an expression I couldn't see as my eyes were still adjusting to the light within the room.   
I touched my lips lightly as I sat up in the bed and frowned in the direction I guessed Are'ea was in, that wasn't exactly what I'd meant by asking her to wake me up. But she seemed to be ignoring me now as I saw the flash of red light that indicated that she had recalled the Are'ea with Kandy's mind back into her Pokéball and I decided I'd ignore what'd just happened as well right now. I had something I still needed to do after all.   
Shaking my head I swung my legs out of the bed and realised I didn't have as much clothes on as I thought. I know I was blushing as I started to scramble about looking for some pants and a top or something and I hissed at Are'ea to help me. It didn't take long for me to put something on and looking at Are'ea I told her to stay, "I'll only be a short while, ok? And hopefully you'll actually have a new friend." She looked at me with concern on my face and I sighed, "I will be ok, Antoni doesn't know I can do this, he has no reason to think this is me." It was odd hearing my words in Kandy's voice and was a little disorientating. She was also taller than I've been used to and I kept having this feeling I was about to fall but Kandy's body had surprisingly good balance.   
It took me a couple of minutes of hitting walls and my knees on things before I actually got back to the door that led me out of our room and finally found myself back on the balcony thing looking down at the large main room. I grinned as I noticed someone was still in there sitting next to the fire. "Oh shit, I forgot it," I muttered to myself and was turning around to go back into my room when the person who was still awake noticed me, "You decided to stay up then Kandy?" I looked back quickly and grinned in what I hoped was a Kandy grin, "Oh uh, yeah. Just give me a min and I'll be back, I forgot something." I couldn't see Antoni's face but he shrugged and went back to doing whatever it was he was doing as I hurriedly opened the door again and went straight to my backpack, stumbling over a small coffee table and falling hard on my hands and knees with a loud, "OW" of complaint that got Are'ea out of the bedroom and looking around franticly and hissing a "Who is it?" Sighing and sitting up next to my bag and hoping I wasn't going to end up with too many bruises on Kandy before I got to give her back her body I mumbled a, "me Are'ea, it's ok, just go sit down again, I forgot my Pokéball." But Are'ea didn't move even as I collected what I'd forgotten and left again, I was pretty sure she was still standing in the bedroom door even as I closed the room door behind me.   
Sighing as I turned from looking back at Are'ea I glanced down at the main room and wondered why it had to be that I was using the end room and that I had to walk all the way around just to get downstairs. They could of at least had the decency to put another way down from here. As I walked around Antoni didn't look up until I was actually walking towards him. And then, just as I wasn't watching my step and tripped over a rug he spoke for the first time, "And I thought you had more grace than that Kandy." I went red as I stood up again and brushed off my clothes, now what would Kandy say? "Uh yeah, heh." That obviously wasn't it as Antoni raised an eyebrow but he just shook his head and smiled, "So you decided to come back down then?" I nodded, "Yep couldn't sleep, what about you?" I replied as I sat down reminding myself of how exactly it was Kandy sat and moved and held herself in general, it wouldn't work really well if I wasn't believable as Kandy, not that Antoni could prove it wasn't her, it's just I wanted to appear sincere and all. Antoni sighed and looked at the fire anyway, "Yeah, the same, too many things on my mind." "Oh! Like where we're going tomorrow?" I put on a big grin like Kandy would, that's a proper response Kandy would make I reassured myself. "Yeah.. that," that obviously wasn't all and I was pretty sure I knew what else he was thinking about, but Kandy didn't and me personally didn't want to push into it.   
"So uh..." how was I going to bring this up, the Pokéball with my disloyal pokemon was in my hand and I started spinning it around between my fingers idly. Antoni turned to look at me and noticed the Pokéball, "What's that?" I caught the Pokéball in the palm of my hand and the first thing in my head came out my mouth, "Oh, this? It's a Persian I don't especially want and looking to trade with someone." Grinning I looked up at him, "Got anyone that'd want a Persian and willing to trade something for it?" Antoni went into thought for a moment before looking at me, "Hmm.... well, you asked Bryce?" the look that must of crossed my face before I could think made Antoni laugh and smile at me, "Heh, yeah I could understand that," he shifted his weight around a little in his chair and unclipped a couple of things from his belt. "Well, I only have these three on me at the moment, and by the fact you've come down here with that I'd be under the impression you wanted to trade something with me?" I blushed slightly and forced an awkward giggle, I don't exactly giggle much personally and Kandy does it way too much when talking to people. "Was there anything in mind you wanted Kandy?" it took me a second before it hit me he was talking to me, "Oh, uh ye- no, not really..." Antoni raised a brow and shook his head, "Well I have a Primeape," I shook my head and he smiled, "Yeah I know you have a Mankey. This one you can't have as it's my Umbreon," he put away those two pokeballs and held the last in his hand, "That leaves Bryce's Marowak.." the way he said that made it sound like he wasn't the most impressed with that. "I probably shouldn't trade that, but-" he looked up and blinked a few times, "Uh, you want this then Kandy?" I sat back in my seat as I'd been leaning forwards and scratched my head, "Oh, no, no, if you can't trade it, it's ok." Antoni looked at me strangely then shook his head, "I'd have to go up to my room to get my other pokemon, if you want a look at those." Again I couldn't control the look on my face and Antoni laughed, "Ok, well if you really want this," he threw the shrunk Pokéball in the air and caught it, "there's a trade machine over there," indicating somewhere over my shoulder that forced me to turn around in my chair.   
I grinned and got up probably a little too soon, Antoni following a step behind me and I couldn't help but bounce a little in my steps. Antoni obviously found it a little weird as he chose to walk a short distance away from me, "You're excited aren't you?" I stumbled in my steps, "Uh, oh, sorry. Just been wanting to get rid of the Persian for a while, taking up room in my line up and all." I flashed a grin at him a moment and he rolled his eyes. "Yeah well, don't be too excited, this pokemon hardly listens to any orders. Though it is strong and fast and is fairly high levelled." "Well I like a strong pokemon!" which was true of Kandy, none of her pokemon were in the least bit weak, "and a challenge is always good!"   
Antoni shrugged, "Well just don't tell Bryce that I traded it with you. We were meant to trade back once we got here, but Bryce hasn't given any inclination that he wants to so I doubt we will." He sighed a little then looked at me and smiled, "Well, I can say now I'll probably end up on the better side of this deal now," I grinned back at him, "Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that, this Persian doesn't do much more than sit on its backside from the moment it's let out of its Pokéball." Antoni shrugged again, "Well, I'll have to change that wont I?" With that he placed his Pokéball on the left side of the trade machine and I placed my Persian's on the right. It didn't take more than a moment as I watched the small screen that showed the pokemon switching pokeballs. I waited for another second before picking up my new Marowak more than a little pleased with myself, this had gone easier than I thought. Turning to look at Antoni as he pocketed the Persian I couldn't help but grin, now I had the somewhat problem of leaving without raising too much suspicion. But I really shouldn't of worried. Antoni looked back up at me with an expression on his face I couldn't really read and fixed the problem by saying, "Well, we should be going to sleep, I talked to the lady earlier and she said that we'd be able to fly tomorrow as long as we got up early..." I nodded and clapped my hands, "Great! So I'll see you tomorrow then and everything right?" Antoni nodded and started to walk towards the stairs, me not really wanting to but knowing Kandy would of, went into step next to him and started babbling some about the city, at least I tried to, like I've said I never really paid much attention to Kandy when she was talking about it to Bryce. I doubt it really would of mattered what I was saying though as Antoni was deep in thought as I spoke and didn't actually say anything himself until he stopped outside his room door. "I'll see you tomorrow Kandy and remember, try not to tell Bryce that I traded his pokemon ok? He probably wouldn't actually care that much.. but I dunno," he shrugged and went into his room leaving me waving a goodbye.   
Still not really believing my luck I quickly hurried back to my room and went inside. Startling Are'ea who'd been sitting next to it as I basically tripped over her. Cursing I picked myself up again and glared at Are'ea, "I told you to wait in the bedroom... blah, is everything ok?" She made a sound that I took as a yes and got myself back onto my feet and helped her up. "Kandy's gonna wake up tomorrow wondering where all these bruises I've gotten her came from, damn it." Are'ea was looking at me and I sighed, "It's not your fault don't worry, come on just hurry up, we need to put things back how they were."   
Dragging Are'ea along with me into the bedroom I told her to release the still sleeping Kandy onto the bed once I'd gotten in. "Wake me up once we've switched ok?" she nodded with a quiet 'yes' and I put my hands to the real Are'ea's head and my mind was suddenly shut down as I became asleep. Another moment and I was being roughly shaken awake again and could hear some startled sounds from Kandy, cursing again this time in Vulpix I looked up at Are'ea and she put her hands to my head and we switched. Without wanting to freak out Kandy any more my hand quickly went straight into my left pocket and grabbed some of the Butterfree sleeping powder and sprinkled it over Kandy, she made some sounds that sounded like half words and started snoring. Stifling laughter I scooped up Are'ea and made my way as quickly as possible out of the bedroom and back to the little living room place. Dropping Are'ea onto the sofa I suddenly realised I was a lot tireder than I had thought and the moment I sat down on the sofa my eyelids had shut and I was out of it.   
  
************ that ended shitty and I should of finished it in one sitting instead of three x.X; blah, *wavies* ************* 


	15. 15

I woke up with a loud thump as my head then the rest of my body hit the floor.   
Mumbling I looked up to see Kandy opening her door and looking in my direction somewhat worried before she actually noticed me then started giggling, "Have a nice trip then?" Turning red I scrambled to get up and at the sound of an extremely high pitched yelp I realised I'd landed on Are'ea having pushed her off when I fell off the sofa and she was not enjoying the experience in the least. Picking Are'ea up the scruff she finally calmed down and gave me a dirty look. Sighing I put her down on the sofa where she promptly walked up to the other end and sat down with her back to me and watched out the window the dawning day over the mountains.   
Kandy decided to come over to me now, "Hey, this is yours isn't it? 'Cause I found it in my room this morning," and she gave me a questioning look as she showed me the Marowak's Pokéball. I scratched my head and tried to think of how exactly to word what I wanted to say, "Uh, yeah well, that's mine. Umm... I how'd it get into your room? Because I'm sure I had it with my stuff..." and I glanced around a little, Are'ea still looking out the window pinned her ears back and made a rather rude comment that I knew I was meant to hear. Kandy was still looking at me oddly but shrugged it off and replaced it with a smile as she lightly tossed the Pokéball towards me, "Well next time keep a better eye on it wont you?" With that she started back to the bedroom and I called her back, "Oh, we can go on the flight as soon as we're ready, it's clear enough to fly and yeah.." Kandy grinned and clapped her hands, "Oh great!" and once more she went to leave, turning on her heels just before closing the door, "How did you know?" she asked tilting her head a little. "The lady came by earlier," I lied. She raised a brow, "Really? You wake up earlier or something? 'Cause that fall made me think you'd just woken up" and grinned. I went red again, "Yeah, she came by earlier... I was just laying down for a while and fell off.." "Oh well. You're ok now right? Well anyways, I'll be ready in twenty minutes and we can go see Bryce and Antoni," and she closed the door.   
Looking at the Marowak's Pokéball now in my hand I hit myself with the other, "That was stupid, totally forgetting about this... blah." I turned my gaze back over to Are'ea who still had her back to me, "You know you don't have to act like that.." but she continued to ignore me and I took the free time I had to pack my few things up and begin to worry again about the upcoming Pidgeot flight. I had a good five minutes to do this before Kandy appeared again with her things and went straight for the door, "I'll go tell Bryce an Antoni we're ready and we can go." She grinned and was gone before I could say anything.   
Looking at Are'ea who'd finally decided I was worth talking to again I just sat rather dumbfounded. My stomach was doing backflips and I really was not looking forwards to what was going to be happening soon. Are'ea could sense my distress an attempted a couple of words of comfort but it didn't help. Are'ea was going to have to go in her Pokéball while I was flying, I wasn't willing to even come close to the possibility where she'd fall off the Pidgeot, I really didn't want to think about it either.   
Kandy knocked on the door fifteen minutes later, "Come on, we're leaving now," and she came in, grabbed her backpack and had left by the time I'd gotten up and taken one step. "Are'ea coming?" she nodded and hopped after me as I walked to the door and grabbing the key left the room just to see Kandy dragging Bryce around the corner to the entrance of the lodge. Kandy waved once in my direction before disappearing from view and I went about locking the door to the room.   
I was turning around when suddenly I found my back hard against the wall and my feet not touching the ground, also something was rather hard against my neck. Choking I looked dead on into some very angry looking eyes, Antoni growled at me, "Ok, now look here. You may have Kandy and Bryce fooled as to who the hell you are but I know who you are and there's nothing you can do to change this. For the moment I'm not going to tell anyone your secret as I really would prefer not to hurt Kandy but if you make even one single slip up I'm going to tell anyone who'll hear about what the hell you really are and what you'd do." He paused but didn't let me go or stop glaring at me, I couldn't exactly say anything in my position and really I doubted there'd be anything he'd believe if I said anyway, I just nodded my head a little.   
"Hey! Are you two coming or not?" came Kandy's voice from the entrance to the main room and I found the floor beneath my feet again. Antoni shot a last glare at me before starting off along the balcony and down the stairs to Kandy leaving me standing there and rubbing my neck. "Damon come on! Hurry up!" Looking towards Kandy I gave a weak smile and started off as well, Are'ea continuing at my feet. She hadn't done anything and I knew she wouldn't, she wont attack Antoni, not for any reason.   
  
* * *  
  
Outside was FREEZING.   
Especially when you compared it to the fire heated rooms of the lodge. I pulled my coat as tightly around me as possible trying to keep the cold out but it really didn't help much. Bryce was talking to a middle aged man next to a large barn like structure rather enthusiastically and I guessed that was where the Pidgeot were kept.   
Kandy suddenly grabbed one of my arms and started dragging me towards the barn thing, "Come on Damon, you just have GOT to see the Pidgeot, they are so totally cool. And they're white just like Bryce said!" That was all I heard her say before I started blocking her out, I really didn't want to listen to her talking about Pidgeots and flying and anything to do with either of those two subjects.   
We went through a small side door and into the barn, Kandy continuing to drag me. We stopped dead and Kandy let me go and I took a half step back again. Along every wall and in the rafters were row upon row of nests, and within each nest was a giant white bird. The higher up you went the smaller they got and I realised for the first time there wasn't only Pidgeot. It's pre-evolutions were as well, well I guess it was kinda a nah duh, you had to get the Pidgeot from somewhere. In front of us were five of the giant white birds not really doing much more than standing there as if waiting for something. Kandy rushed up to the nearest one squealing in a high pitched voice and went about ruffling the Pidgeot's feathers in a friendly manner that the bird obviously enjoyed as it closed its eyes and made a quiet cooing noise. Personally I wasn't really wanting to go up to these birds that were at least seven and a half feet tall for the biggest one. The talons and beaks on each of them looked more than able to rip me in half without the least bit of trouble. So I took the time to just stand back and watch Kandy as she fussed over each of the birds in turns.   
From behind me Antoni, Bryce and the man I guess owned the birds came in. The man moving over to the large barn doors and going about opening them with Antoni while Bryce did just what I was doing and stood back watching Kandy with the birds. I suddenly got the distinct impression that he wasn't actually looking forwards to this flight anymore than I was despite all his boasting about it. He'd already claimed to be a 'tough' type trainer, and that meant he was more into the down to earth pokemon, I wondered if he'd even been in the air before.   
A rush of air from behind me as a draft flooded in from the now open doors sent up a chorus of complaints from most of the feathered occupants of the barn that was nearly at a deafening tone and I had to put my hands over my ears. As a matter of fact the man was the only one who didn't and he laughed at the four of us as each of us slowly took our hands away from our ears, "Despite all their feathers and that extra layer of fat these birds still don't like the cold do they?" he continued to laugh. I shook myself as I watched him walk over to one of the largest birds that were out and run a finger under its beak that got a happy ruffle of feathers from the Pidgeot. "Excuse me Miss, but if you'll just stand over there with your friends a moment while I harness up these Pidgeot then you'll be ready to go," he smiled at Kandy and she rather reluctantly hopped back over towards me and Bryce. Antoni continued to stand over near the barn doors while we watched the man put on the Pidgeot's riding gear, mostly just a sort of saddle type of thing that kept your legs in place, there didn't seem so far to be anywhere we were expected to hold onto with our arms except around their necks. This didn't help the backflips going on in my stomach. At least one thing that was a plus while we were watching, the man did a sort of talk on the Pidgeot and showed us a couple of helpful tricks so as to get on the birds better sides. Not that Kandy hadn't already done a good job of that and I doubted quiet a lot she needed any more help with that.   
Well a couple of the things I learnt; most of the Pidgeot at the Pidgeot Flight Centre originally came from the wild lower down in the mountains when they were either Pidgeotto or Pidgey. Pidgey were the preferred evolutionary stage to be captured at as they could be trained from an earlier age and took less time to teach what to do and properly. Where as the Pidgeotto, while older and not usually needing as much training to become Pidgeot usually came out to be smaller than those caught as Pidgey when they did become fully evolved. Also they had a larger habit of not obeying as, despite the fact they were smaller than the evolved Pidgeotto at the centre they were still larger than a normal Pidgeotto. They never caught full grown Pidgeot as for starters, they were nearly impossible to catch as they're white feathers camouflaged them perfectly with their surroundings and when found they would either speed off at an unmatchable pace or attacked in such a manner that you would be lucky to survive. Plus a fully evolved Pidgeot took unprofitable amounts of time to train and had to be kept away from the other birds as they'd attack each other. So they didn't use wild mountain Pidgeot.   
The Pidgey line were almost completely white, except for the Pidgey themselves that were mostly a slate grey and sometimes muddy browns with white. Pidgeotto were half and half greys and whites and then Pidgeot's were a solid white.   
Mountain Pidgey were actually smaller and fatter than the normal but everything else was larger though still held a little of the extra fat. Mostly because of the same reason a Dewgong has an extra layer of fat beneath its fur, to help keep it warm in the sub-zero temperatures that were common here up on the higher peaks of the mountains. Also they have an extra layer of feathers below the primary ones just like a Farfetch'd to keep the water and snow away from their skin as much as possible. This down was actually also farmed from the Pidgey and Pidgeotto as they grew up and were in training to become Flight Pidgeot to get some sort of earnings out of them.   
The mountain variation of Pidgey and its evo's only were found in the mountains, kinda duh type of thing, and the higher up you went the higher in the evolution chain you went. Its extremely unlikely you'll find a Pidgey at the highest peaks just as it's extremely unlikely to find a white mountain Pidgeot down where everything is green. So yeah.  
The Pidgeot Flight Center had been around for more than fifteen generations, so it'd been there a really long time, though the operation had gotten bigger in the last fifty years or so with the growth of the mountain great trainer city and there being a larger need of people to get to and from there. But things were still basically the same as they had always been, the basic method and design for everything was nearly exactly the same as it had been when it had all started.   
There was also quiet a large amount of other things that I can't quiet remember but for some reason those ones there stood out the most for me.   
Now ready the man who's name turned out to be Tom, led the Pidgeot out in a straight line outside of the barn and lined them up a good couple of meters apart from each other in a row ready to be mounted. Kandy, Bryce, Antoni and me all followed suite and stood back a little from Tom and his pokemon waiting to be told what to do next. Tom looked at each of us and sized us up before appointing a bird to each of us. Lucky me got the smallest one, though this still wasn't much of a consolation as it was still more than a couple of feet taller than me.   
After walking up to and giving my Pidgeot a short pat on the neck I looked at the saddle strapped to the back it's then turned around to watch as Tom showed Bryce, who was next to me, how to mount onto the Pidgeot's back. Bryce was doing worse than me I'd say as he was continuing to stand well away from the bird while I'd already said hello to my Pidgeot. I snickered under my breath as Tom had to coax Bryce to even come near the Pidgeot before waiting another ten minutes before he'd even touch the bird. Tom sighed and was about to go and help Kandy with something when a comment from Antoni boosted Bryce's courage and Tom finally got to get Bryce onto the Pidgeot's back and strapped on. Tom went over to Kandy to help her strap in her legs and I decided it was time I actually got onto my rides back as everyone else except Tom had already got on theirs.   
I looked at my Pidgeot and wondered if I could get a boost from anywhere to help me actually get my leg over the birds back so I could sit on it, but as I looked around I didn't see anything nearby. The Pidgeot watching me with its saucer sized pale blue eyes seemed to get the idea I was having trouble with getting on and lowered its body down onto the ground and pulled its wing back so I could get on easily. Grinning and saying my thanks to the giant bird I swung my leg over its back and sat myself back in the saddle and slipped my feet into the foot rests or whatever they were. The saddles were situated so you sat with your legs on their shoulders and wrapped around their lower neck to their chests and you sat between their wings. Arms were obviously meant to go around their necks as there wasn't anywhere else for them to go.   
It was surprisingly comfortable sitting on the Pidgeot's back and it was warmer than you'd think from just looking at them, their feathers were also extremely soft and I felt like if I had a bed made of the stuff I'd never want to leave it. I looked over at Bryce and he still seemed extremely uneasy with sitting on the Pidgeot's back and the Pidgeot seemed to be able to tell as it was continuing to move from foot to foot and fluttering its wings to make Bryce even more stressed about his situation. Tom noticed this and suddenly came running over from Antoni where he'd been tightening a strap holding the saddle to Antoni's Pidgeot's chest and started undoing Bryce's legs from their restraints. A moment later and he'd pulled Bryce off the Pidgeot and was moving him to the last one that didn't have anyone on it. This was the largest of all the birds but I couldn't also help but think the oldest as well as it was standing there extremely docile and its eyes didn't have the same bright shine of the others. Though there was something about the Pidgeot that made you think it wasn't the least bit weak. Bryce was quickly seated on the new bird as Tom said some quiet words to him and he visibly relaxed as he let Tom do up the straps on his legs.   
Kandy and Antoni were talking to each other at the other end of the line and I got to sit and think to myself and give my Pidgeot some pats as I waited for us to be ready to go. I idly wondered for a moment if Are'ea would of liked to of joined the ride but I couldn't help but seriously doubt it, plus I had nowhere to put her while we flew. My mind drifted away from Are'ea as a young girl came running up to us from somewhere inside the bird barn with a helmet in hand and went about checking each of the Pidgeot's in turn and making sure that everything was done up properly, even after Tom did most of them. I didn't get to hear what Kandy, Antoni, Tom and the girl said up the other end before the girl came up to me last of all and completely strapped my legs in. I said a half hello and she didn't say anything before moving to the Pidgeot that Bryce had originally been on and jumped on its back, leaning over the side to do up the legs straps for herself. "Hey, I thought Tom was taking us.." The girl suddenly looked up at me with a stern look on her face that reminded me of the woman from the lodge, "Weren't you listening? Dad can't take you today, he has to wait until my brother comes back with a group from the city. Plus, I want to get some things AND I'm a better flier than him and we're probably going to be getting into snow near the end of the flight," she said all of this in a matter of fact tone and I just stared at her blankly.   
The girl sat up straight in her Pidgeot's saddle, the bird of which had turned as docile and calm as the one Bryce was now ridding, and raised her voice, "Ok. Now everyone LISTEN UP. On the left of your saddle is a small yellow whistle attached to some rope, if you get into any sort of trouble or become lost blow three times on the whistle. Visibility isn't always the best higher up in the mountains and this is the easiest way to find one of you. Also, trust the Pidgeot, they've done this hundreds of times and know where they're going. A couple of other things I must add as well. The Pidgeot may sometimes break into high speed dashes, this is normal and nothing to be frightened about. Also, while flying through the clouds you may find your Pidgeot doing a sudden turn as a mountain top or rock ledge appears as if out of nowhere. Again don't be scared, these Pidgeot have done this multiple times before and know what they are doing. Last thing. Free flying and showing off is allowed but I wont be held responsible for anyone falling off of their Pidgeot," with that she grabbed the helmet that'd been resting on her Pidgeot's head and put it on, doing up the buckle on the bottom and I noticed that the helmet covered her ears and I wondered idly if she'd be able to hear me if I had to use that whistle for any reason. She gave her Pidgeot a light kick in its sides and it started moving forwards, its wings gradually spreading out as it moved closer to the edge of the cliff that wasn't too far ahead of us. "Now everyone hold onto their Pidgeot's neck tightly, and it doesn't matter how tightly you hold on, unless you're as strong as a Machamp there isn't a single possibility that you'll choke these birds. ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT!" and her Pidgeot disappeared off the edge of the cliff a second later with her screaming as she went, only for the Pidgeot to be seen swooping up into view a couple of moments later, its massive wingspan visible as it glided on an air current up and above us.   
Next went me as my Pidgeot started walking towards the edge of the cliff, its wings spreading out on either side of me and its body. I can't say it was a comfortable ride for that short amount of time as the Pidgeot's body lurched from side to side. But it didn't last long and I was suddenly plunging downwards with my arms wrapped extremely tightly around the birds neck as I screamed my head off even after an updraught caught my ride and sent it sailing straight back up into the air soaring.   
I turned my head around at the sound of Kandy screaming with delight after Antoni as her Pidgeot did the exact same thing mine and Antoni's had. Then there was Bryce who was ghost white as his older Pidgeot went running off the edge of the cliff and plummeted downwards before catching an updraught and gliding back up to where the rest of us were circling above the Pidgeot Flight Centre and Lodge.   
The girl suddenly swooped down towards Tom who was still standing outside and watching us and each of the Pidgeot in order went straight after the first one. I heard the girl scream a "Goodbye Dad!" and Tom reply, "Have a nice flight Lisa!" before I was soaring once more upwards and towards the mountains on our way to the mountain city.  
  
  
************************ started shitty, didn't get much better x.x; *wavies* *************************************************** 


	16. 16

Flying was more enjoyable than I ever thought possible.   
At least for the first two or three hours, then it got fairly dull and aside from the occasional burst of speed from my Pidgeot there wasn't anything really I hadn't seen already, or at least something similar.   
In the beginning it'd been funny to hear Bryce's cries of fear as he clutched to his Pidgeot for dear life when ever it did something unexpectedly, though after the first couple of times of this it started getting into a habit of making a clicking noise to give Bryce warning before it did anything suddenly. That usually had Bryce closing his eyes tightly the moment his mount even started the sound. It was highly amusing.   
Kandy was the total opposite nearly, she was completely enjoying her ride and had even figured out how to get her Pidgeot to do loop-de-loops and barrel rolls and a whole heap of other fancy moves. This started up a competition between her and the Pidgeot owners daughter pretty early on in trying to out do each other. Of course Lisa could totally out do Kandy seeing as she had all the experience under her belt but Kandy still had her fairly hard pressed despite her advantage. That was fun to watch even after the first couple of hours as they didn't give up for more than ten or fifteen minutes before trying again.  
Antoni was utterly dull though. He stayed going in a straight line and only cried out in surprise the first couple of times his Pidgeot did something unexpected then he just got this highly concentrated expression on his face and he just flew along pretty much like me. Though I tried out a couple of loop-de-loops and barrel rolls myself now and then when my Pidgeot was willing.   
As we flew the order in which we were doing so continually changed of who was where, with Icey even being last a couple of times. I guessed seeing as the Pidgeot's knew where they were going anyway the order didn't really matter all that much as we were all going to get there anyway.   
It wasn't actually until the last hour and a half that we were really flying through the clouds. Yeah we'd gone through a couple already now and then previously, but that was now and then. Now it was more solid cloud with now and then a gap in between. This was when I realised why exactly Lisa had the helmet that covered her ears. My ears had already felt rather wind bashed from just normal flying now they were freezing as dewdrops continued to collect on my body all over and in my hair. Where it dribbled down over my ears, making them thoroughly frozen and numb fairly quickly. The Pidgeot was also collecting the dew but didn't seem to mind in the least, probably because most of it just rolled off its feathers in small streams.   
Also another thing with flying through the clouds was that you could hardly see in front of you and you had to trust more than anything that everyone else was nearby as opening your mouth to say anything usually resulted in a frozen and dry throat that was extremely uncomfortable to fly with. Even in the small gaps of cloudless sky, but occasionally you had to just to be certain there was actually someone nearby, though it took a couple of minutes before people usually replied someone always did. The other thing with flying in clouds was that things would suddenly appear out of nowhere, like an outcrop of rocks, a treetop or even what would start off as a large shadow then turn into another Pidgeot with rider atop that I felt like I was nearly going to crash into. But of course I never did, my Pidgeot was smart enough to dodge around anything that came in our way and could judge fairly well where I was sitting on its back and how much room I took up so as not to scrape my head or shoulders on anything.   
We'd left the Pidgeot Flight Center at no more than two hours after dawn and it was until late afternoon that we saw the first signs of the city. And the first was a large turret set atop a mountain summit just above the clouds that we had to fly around. There wasn't any movement inside or outside of the turret and I couldn't exactly see why anyone would even want to build one there, it's not like as if you'd be able to see much often with clouds being around the foot of it probably all the time. Plus, who'd waste time in trying to take over this sort of place when you had perfectly good flat land everywhere else. I shrugged though, to each their own, someone must of seen a point in building it at some time. We actually passed three more of these turrets at around the same height at different points as we approached closer to the city but each of them still showed no sign of life, or at least, nothing recent. Outside a couple of them were different forms of machinery and wood piles and other things but nothing seemed to of been moved in a long time.   
At last we came to a group of mountains that all peaked above the clouds in a wide arc that completed into a circle somewhere beyond my vision and we flew in between them in groups of ones and twos and started a lazy circle downwards around the perimeter of the circle of mountains. These were extremely large circles as from one side you couldn't see the other except as a fuzzy blur. Below us appeared the city after a while and I realised that it was surrounded by a large wall on every side like a giant fortress. I couldn't see much more than the city was a blur of white below me at the time so I went to look around at the countryside on all the sides around it and realised this was a huge valley made at low mountain levels and that around the edges at different points on the mountains surrounding were more of those turrets. This place was highly defended at some point for some reason. But I really still couldn't see what this place needed to be defended against, no one in their right mind would try and get to this place and want to conquer it. Unless of course maybe there was something really special about this place... I honestly couldn't think of what you'd find so high up in the mountains that someone would think so valuable.   
It was actually still another hour before I could even make out separate structures of stone within the city, and the first ones were some rather large structures built at specific places that were easily accessible from nearly everywhere else in the city. Though the two largest where pyramid like shapes, kind of reminding me of something like the Aztec pyramids, and those were positioned at opposite ends of the city then there were three slightly smaller ones in a triangle shape near the center, leaving a clearly visible path from the two larger ones to each other though. The center of the city was a huge plaza though and there were a couple of smaller ones about in different places as well and also four battle arenas, one in each corner of the city and those were also huge and each styled near completely different. As we got closer to the ground still I could see small bug sized people wondering about between the buildings and quiet often accompanied by some sort of pokemon, there were also visible people in the countryside as well but they were further away and even harder to see than the people below.   
A thought struck my mind and I found I felt like I was looking down at some sort of ancient city which had been here for centuries. And I couldn't help but bet it was, there was nothing built like this place anymore, with almost everything built with stone and with fortressed built around them and everything. I declared to myself this place was definitely cool and I was most pleased with the fact I'd actually decided to come, even having to put up with Bryce and Antoni up until this point was worth it. Something else struck my mind and I wondered how many people actually knew about this place, as I'd never heard of it before and I seriously doubted all that many people had. I think Kandy had said that earlier...   
Still it was another forty-five minutes before we actually touched down to the ground at one of the smaller plazas. But in that time I and the others got to have a good look at the city as we swooped around and around over the top of it. Near the end having to dodge other pokemon now and then as they flew about as well, but most of them moved out of the way of us which was good as I really didn't think a collision would be that much fun.   
  
  
************** I'm gonna stop it here ^.^; Mainly as I don't know what else to say and I want to goto bed and well... I can't be stuffed typing more now and it's easier just to stop the chapter! Anyway! They've arrived! and and... I can finish this soon, YAY!!! *runs around cheering at herself like an idiot* I might actually finish a pokemon for the first time ever! So totally YAY!!!!!!! *dances!* Hehe. Oh well, well anyways, I know how this finishes, I know a couple of things that need to happen before it finishes... Like the Antoni-Damon thing worked out for one, the Marowak, O, yay, I'll do that next if not then the one after *bounces about* hehe, Oh damn.. now, how do I... *scratches her head* Oh well, figure it out when it happens! Time to leave, no? Well, anyways, despite the fact I haven liked the last couple of chapters much, I do like my Mountain Pidge's and I think they cool, also the city is cool and helps me with something else... but that doesn't concern you, the person reading this, so ner =P hehe ^.~ *wavies now* BYEZ! 4 Now at least *wavies* ************************** 


	17. 17

Landing second to last with Bryce after me I clung on tightly to my Pidgeot as it landed with a hard jolt that made me feel like as if I was about to fall off and was extremely grateful for those straps holding me in place. Bryce having landed a moment after me gave off a short cry and I turned to look back at him and laughed out loud at the frightend expression on his face, eyes tightly closed and knuckles a white where they gripped the Pidgeot's neck.   
Bending over one side of my Pidgeot to start undoing the straps keeping my leg to its side my ears suddenly popped and I noticed there was a lot more noise going on than I thought. Mostly just the low buzz of people walking around and talking to each other along with their pokemon. Finally getting one leg undone I turned to the other side and went about undoing those straps as well before attempting to slide off of the back of my mount. This wasn't exactly easy and after three attempts I decided maybe I should ask my Pidgeot to do what it did last time to help me get on. The Pidgeot had already been watching me with one of its large pale blue eyes and understood what I wanted before I even really got to ask and it lowered itself to the ground, which made me reknew my grip to its neck as again I felt like as if I was going to fall off. But I let go pretty soon and as the Pidgeot went about pulling a wing back I tried pulling my right foot out of the rest pocket thingy and after the second tug got my leg free. Without thinking about it I shoved my leg over the other side of the Pidgeot's back with my other leg, which was totally the wrong thing to do as my weight was thrown to that side and I fell out of the saddle twisting my leg that was still within the grips of the foot thingy that'd been protecting it. So now I half lay on the ground and half hung from the side of the Pidgeot by my twisted leg still caught in the saddle and declared to myself this was not fun. Quickly pulling myself up as best as possible I pulled my trapped leg free and fell flat on my back, this being not the least bit comfortable as the plaza ground was solid stone and not exactly soft to land on.   
Picking myself up off the ground and dusting my clothes off I noticed that no one had laughed and looked around to see why, both Kandy and Antoni seemed still tied up with getting themselves out of their saddles and Lisa had already gotten out of hers and was trying to help Bryce out of his saddle and off his Pidgeot as he was having absolutely no luck what so ever in doing it himself. A couple of moments later and everyone was off their Pidgeot and most of us weren't exactly standing very tall, both Bryce and Kandy were leaning on their Pidgeot and Antoni was trying very hard to just stand where he was. Suddenly I realised that my legs had locked and I couldn't move as I tried to walk over towards the others.   
Lisa looked at the four of us and started laughing, "Oh definately a first flight isn't it? You'll be able to walk properly without any problems sometime during the next couple of days, that usually happens on a first flight, just like riding a Ponyta or Rapidash for the first time." She grinned at each of us in turn and no one but Kandy even attempted to give even part of one back. "Well anyway, who's the one who was invited? Because we need to find you your lodgings," Antoni coughed, "Me. Bryce was there with me and he was allowed to come, the other two were invited by him," he scowled somewhat and I wondered why before Lisa clapped her hands and grinned, "Ok, so... who was it that invited you then?" Antoni deciding to take on Kandy's and Bryce's idea leaned against his Pidgeot somewhat as he pulled his backpack off his back and pulled out a rather raggered looking piece of paper. Lisa went straight towards it and snatched it out of Antoni's hand and flipped it open. Her eyes suddenly went bright and her voice went up a couple of notches, "Oooo... you must be a good trainer if this person invited you. They're one of the best trainers there is, at least I like to think so." She raised her eyes and looked Antoni over as if seeing him in a new light, "What'd you do to get this..? Oh never mind, I'll probably find out soon enough anyway." Folding the note up again she handed it back over to Antoni, "Well once you can follow me wont you? And don't worry about the Pidgeot, they know where to go, there's a house just for them nearby that they'll go to and I can check on them later," and with that she started walking away from us.   
Forcing my legs to unlock I pretty much wobbled for the first few meters before attempting a not even half decent walk after her with Antoni, Kandy and Bryce around me. We must of looked rather funny with all four of us walking like that and it wasn't exactly a short distance we ended up going, though I will say that at least it meant we got to get feeling back through our legs and were able to walk a little better by the time we arrived at whatever the place was that we were heading towards.   
I didn't really pay much attention to anything even after we stopped outside a large wooden door and got the result of walking into the back of Lisa of which she promptly spun around and shoved me away from herself and into Kandy, who fell backwards onto Bryce and Bryce onto the ground. At least I had the softest landing with two people below me but I scrambled to get up none the less and I did feel somewhat worse for wear. I helped Kandy up but didn't bother with Bryce and he got himself up looking most annoyed with me. I just turned around and looked at Lisa who'd rung the large gold bell that was hanging beside the doors and was now watching the door waiting for it to open. She didn't have to wait long before a long line of black appeared between the wooden doors and two bright red eyes glittered out at us. Lisa turned around and grabbed Antoni by his top and shoved him towards the door and hissed at him, "Show them the note you have," which he promptly did, holding it out to the small gap for the eyes to look over. They didn't just look over it and two large thin fingers snatched it out of Antoni's grip and pulled it inside the doorway. Antoni didn't bother trying to grab it back and we all stood to wait as we heard some odd sounds and the wooden doors were slammed shut in our faces.   
Lisa sighed and put her hands on her hips before shouting at the top of her voice, "It's not false, OPEN THE DOORS DRAIN!" I jumped back in surprise at the sudden shouting but I'm pretty sure I'm the only one, but a moment later there were was the sound of something heavy being slid away and the large doors opened like magic. Lisa stepped forwards first her arms crossing over her chest and glared around the dark insides of the room infront of us. And it was dark, there wasn't anything to see except pitch black even with the light being thrown in by the open doors behind me, it just seemed to be swallowed up as if it wasn't there. An involitary shiver ran down my spine and I just had the darkest feeling creep over me, this wasn't a place I really wanted to be in, something bad had happend here at one time and the feeling was lingering in the air. But I seemed to be the only one who thought so as Kandy, Bryce and Antoni were marvelling over the effect.   
I was looking around at the dark and realised that I couldn't see Lisa anymore and a dread washed over me, I had the incling to call for her but held my tongue and just watched and waited instead. The wooden doors suddenly slammed shut and instead of the room loosing the only light it had contained it flooded with the stuff and I had to cover my eyes as they needed to readjust to the sudden intensity. Being able to see again after a half dozen blinks of my eyes I noticed Lisa was back and being towered over by an albino Alakazam that was squinting its red eyes into slits as it glared down at her, but her arms were crossed and she had an even harder look on her face that showed she wasn't the least bit intimidated by the psychic pokemon. The Alakazam took a single false swipe at her that she didn't even flinch at before spitting a word at her that didn't sound anything like an Alakazam could say and slouched off down a darkend corridor muttering as it moved before disappearing from sight and the only thing we could hear were the clicks of its claws against the hard stone floor.   
Lisa looked at each of us in turn with the same hard look to her features before dropping her arms to her sides and shrugging, "I wouldn't mind him if I were you, he's usually like that, sulks in the dark, not natural for a psychic type if you ask me, but I'm not its trainer so I can't really talk. Just remember he'll always be around and those large ears can hear things you couldn't possibly imagine so be careful whil you stay here. He's gone to get his master so we'll be meeting them in a moment, just you wait." A mix between a smirk and grin played over her face for a moment before disappearing as she turned to look in the direction the Alkazam had gone again as if expecting it to appear again, but I couldn't hear anything and was startled when it just reappeared infront of us with a surprisingly short woman. Her features were sharp and there was a dark look around her eyes that I didn't especially like. But she was most likely going to be our hostess and I really didn't want to ruin anything for everyone.   
She smiled up at us and walked over to Antoni and put her hand out to shake, "It's a pleasure to finally meet you young man, I've been waiting a long time for this moment," a twitch to her left eye as she smiled wasn't reasurring but Antoni shook her hand and said his own hello. Next was Kandy then Bryce and finally me, again I seemed to be the only one who felt like something was wrong as everyone else was more than willing to shake her hand except me who only did so grudgingly. She gave me a sharp look but didn't comment and went straight back over to Antoni, "Well, Antoni you said it was?" he nodded his head, "My name is Madame Karri Xenos, most will just call me Karri though and you may as well," she nodded her head and smiled again, though this time without the extra twitch, "Now come along you four, follow me. Lisa dear, you may leave now, it's good to see you well, do tell your father to visit me soon wont you? I haven't seen that face in a rather much long time," Lisa put on a fake smile and nodded her head, "Yes I'll do that Madame," the look of her face and the way she said those words gave a fairly strong impression that wasn't about to happen any time soon. Our hostess ignored it though and turned her back to all of us and started down one another passageway that I hadn't noticed previously her Alakazam that I'd forgotten about moving ahead of her by some distance. I was the last person to follow along as Antoni, Bryce then Kandy went after her and I held back to watch Lisa as she mumbled something unheard and pulled open one of the heavy wooden doors and disappeared outside leaving me alone in the room. Quickly hurrying to catch up with the group down the passage, I was most grateful for their slow pace as it made it easy to actually catch up to them without anyone noticing.   
It took less than a couple of minutes of silence through a fairly well lit walkway before we stopped at an intersection going off in each direction. Karri turned around to face each of us and smiled that creepy smile of hers before clasping her hands together and raising her voice, "Now, I don't believe any of you four will of been to this city before," no one moved and she took it as an indication of yes, "Well there are a few rules one must obey to make sure they don't get into too much trouble while they are here. Manners are of the upmost importance at all times, no matter what someone may say or do to you, there are a lot of people within this city that posses more power than you could possibly believe and no one is to be judged upon first impressions. Everyone hides a secret. Second no one walks around after dark and it is highly adviseable that you get back within this house well before this time or at least into some sort of establishment. If by some manner you find that you can't get back here before dark find somewhere else as soon as possible, most people will be more hospitable if just asked and will allow stay for the night." Kandy suddenly piped up what was probably on all of our minds, "Why can't we go out at night?" Madame Karri looked blankly at Kandy for a long hard minute before answering and Kandy obviously didn't find the scrutiny very comfortable as she continually shifted her weight, "Strange, very strange things happen at night in this city and in the surrounding valley... Both people and pokemon are known to of disappeared, each of varying degrees of experience, with no trace. So you'll understand me if I say to take this advice with caution," each of us nodded together, "Last, take all challenges seriously and do in no manner boast what you can not back up, or you will be quickly shown your place," she seemed to eye Bryce for a particulary long time as she said that and I smirked slightly.   
Now with a much lighter note she unclasped her hands and pointed to each of the four corners, "Now as you can see we are at an intersection, to each direction is a door and through each door is a room, these are your rooms and you may pick as you like which you choose to have. Just pick either north, east, south or west," she smiled with her teeth and I looked away, a lovely shade of yellow they were. "You'll find all rooms acessable that you can get to, there are no locks on any of the doors within my establishment and you are free to wonder as you please about it. From most places there is a path back to the one main entrance which is just behind you now in a straight line so you should have no troubles finding where to go, just remember your exit is south. Now I do hope you each enoy your stay in this wonderful city and get to leave with some new and exciting experiences had," again those teeth flashed before she pointedly looked at Antoni, "Now if you may excuse me I have a few things I must attend before the night falls soon so I shall be going. Antoni," she bowed slightly, "I will see you soon when I can arrange a time, I will notify you previously so as to make sure you have a time free," and she was suddenly no longer there, just like she'd only suddenly been there earlier when we first saw her.   
I looked at Kandy, Antoni and Bryce and each had varying expressions, Kandy still seemed quiet happy and exited, Bryce had a slightly worried and thoughtful face while Antoni seemed extremely indiceive and also somewhat deep in thought, so I piped up my voice, "Well, uh, shall we see our rooms?" Both Antoni and Bryce snapped out of their trances and looked at me, "Well I guess so.." mumbled Antoni but Kandy butted in, "Well seeing as you three can't decide what to do I just say we each pick a direction to go and just take that room, it saves having to look at each one then squabble over who gets what." She grinned at each of us and I shrugged but nodded, "Ok then," spoke Bryce first, "But I'm getting the one to the left.." Kandy nodded and grinned, "Well I'm taking the right path, that means there's backwards and forwards for you two to decide over..." I looked at Antoni but he didn't say anything and so I chose first, "I'll have the one back there then." Kandy clapped her hands and patted Antoni on the back, "Well that leaves only forwards for our good friend Antoni here then," she grinned and he looked at her with a raised eyebrow but she just laughed. "I don't know about you guys but that Pidgeot flight's left me somewhat tired and I really want to be able to look around the city properly, plus if we have to stay inside before it gets too dark that means we wont have much time now anyway, so you three want to get an early nights sleep so we'll be freash and ready for tomorrow and we go exploring then or do it now?" We all looked at each other and knew each was thinking the same thing, "So tomorrow then?" we all nodded and agreed then we'd meet each other tomorrow here. There was no time allocated but I guessed that if anyone didn't really get up in time someone would wake them up so it wasn't a big deal.  
So each of us went our seperate ways down different paths, Kandy to the right, Bryce to the left and Antoni in the opposite direction to me. As I walked along the passageway it wasn't long until I saw the door and couldn't help but be somewhat surprised as I hadn't noticed it while we were walking the other way, but I just shrugged it off as I hadn't really been paying attention and pushed the door open.   
As I stepped inside a light went on like magic and I closed the door behind me. It was a nice enough place, not really as fancy as the Flight Lodge had been but still nice enough, everything was done up in shades of a midnight blue and crimson red and a black carpet and trimmings to things. The light wasn't that strong and it gave the room a thick dark atmosphere that held a mixture of feelings.   
Deciding I wanted some sort of company with me right then I grabbed a pokeball from my waist expecting it to be Are'ea's and called her out. But I was surprised to find that it wasn't Are'ea but my new Marowak and it seemed fairly much just as surprised as I was. Its boneclub switched hands twice in a defensive manner as it glanced around quickly sussing out the area before glaring back at me with dark eyes, "MarrO maroww..." it growled at me quietly as it continued to hold the defensive stance. I couldn't help but be under the slightest impression that it wasn't all that pleased. "Uh, umm.. Marowak, uh, I just need to..." and I slowly started to move my hand towards Are'ea's pokeball before something suddenly hit my hand hard and I recoiled it quickly, glancing back at the Marowak I watched it catch its boneclub and glare at me before throwing it again. I stood stock still scared out of my wits as the club came wizzing around my waist and knocked Are'ea's pokeball off of my belt and sent it rolling towards the Marowak itself. Catching the boneclub again it bent down and picked up the shrunk pokeball within its free hand between glances at me and enlarged it. For a moment I thought he was going to smash the pokeball as he sent the end of the boneclub towards it but all the Marowak did was tap the button that released the catch and let Are'ea out of her pokeball. She came out in the typical stream of red energy, reforming dead center between both me and the Marowak and looking quiet surprised to be facing it instead of me. She quickly turned her head and shot a look at me that cleary said, "what's going on?" before turning back to the Marowak with her hackles raised.   
The Marowak made a couple of short movements with the boneclub and uttered some words that got a response I didn't catch from Are'ea before she bounded behind my legs growling quiet loudly at the Marowak. The Marowak on the other hand looked quiet confused as it looked up at me then at the Vulpix again as if thinking quiet intently. I looked down at Are'ea but she didn't look up at me as she continued to growl at the ground pokemon only stopping as I spoke to her, "Would you mind if we just switched for a moment, I think it'll work better as I don't think he's going to listen to me like this so much..." Are'ea looked up at me and blinked once before looking at the Marowak once more and nodding her head just slightly, obviously not really wanting to stop glaring at the ground type. I glanced at the Marowak once myself and said in a clear loud voice, "Now, all I'm doing is petting Are'ea... you don't need to attack me ok?" I knew I sounded a little pleading but I didn't care, that bone hurt like mad when it hit my hand before and I was fairly sure that was only a light throw.   
Cocking its head to the side the Marowak watched me but didn't make any move to attack me as I bent down and brushed my fingers just lightly over Are'ea's temples and switched our minds. I was glaring at the Marowak but quickly stopped and started to take some tentive steps around my legs and closer towards the ground type using a more submissive look. The Marowak narrowed its eyes though and raised its club so I stopped and decided to speak instead, "Ok well, I'm sorry about this... I didn't mean for this to happen like this, actually all I was doing was really looking for some sleep, but anyway..." The Marowak cut me short, "Mmmaro.. Marrow ow, marrowwak marow... So it was you... I didn't think it was the Vulpix who I'd been speaking to." I blinked a couple of times in surprise and promptly sat as the Marowak lowered its boneclub ever so slightly. Speach is fairly much universal in the pokemon world, though it does depend on wether the pokemon wishes to speak in a general tone or only within a species ratio. I know both just the normal Vulpix and the cross language which is quiet helpful, though it does still take a little while before you can understand what exactly is being said, plus the fact there's a whole heap of extra things that come into effect as well as the speach that you can only really sense as a pokemon yourself, but anyway. "You're the human aren't you? Not the Vulpix... and you're the one I met last time as well aren't you? I wasn't exactly sure up until now, but I'm definately certain now.." the Marowak continued and I let it speak waiting for a gap so I could myself, trying to show as much respect as possible for the other pokemon. "Uh, yeah, I'm the human, well... at the moment, this is my mind speaking here." The Marowak looked up at the still glaring Are'ea, though now it was with my face and I decided maybe it was time she stopped that, "Are'ea go sit on the bed a moment will you please?" I told her in Vulpine, she looked down at me with a frown but did what I said none the less, even if slightly relucant and sat on the bed. Not really in a manner I would as she curled up as best she could as if she was still a Vulpix, annoying habit she has, as many times as I tell her people don't sleep like that she still does when ever she's within a human body.   
The Marowak watched her as she moved then nodded at me, "Yes, you are the human then. Do you have a name to be called human or shall I just call you that?" I faulted a moment, "Uh..." really, I couldn't help but think this Damon thing wasn't going to stick all that long, but I also didn't know how long I was going to have the Marowak... So I didn't know what exactly to say. It smiled though with its eyes and dropped its boneclub so it could lean on it like a walkingstick or something, "The human has forgotten its real name has it? No matter, we probably shant know each other very long will we?" he shrugged slightly and let out a quiet sigh, "Well my name is 'Tar despite what some other humans may think... What is it you wish to say to me?"  
  
*************************** actully, I'm gonna break it here ^.^; *grins* I was going to break it just after he entered the room but I've realised there's more I want to type than I thought originally, so here's the break instead, Slightly better? But hey, I was right, you finds out about Marowak next ^.^ *wavies now* BYEZ! *wavies* ******************************************** 


	18. 18

I faulted again looking at the Marowak and thought a moment, "Well.. uh, I was curious as to.. umm.. how do I explain it?" I started rambling off before 'Tar broke in. "You were wondering why I knew there was something wrong with you, is that right?" his eyes seemed to spark a moment as I nodded my head, "Uh huh." "Well actually, I wasn't really thinking of something like this, it was fairly obvious that something was different though. Of course the thick-headed young pokemon I was sent to battle with didn't realise this as they lack the experience, but just watching your human form speaking so fluently in Vulpine was disconcerting for one. Then the appearance of you and the way you moved, that wasn't normal," I was about to but in but 'Tar raised a hand to quieten me, "Yes, you're fairly believable, I'm sure even a normal Vulpix may of been fooled, but being as old as I am you learn to pick on the little things," I blinked slightly confused and titled my head but 'Tar brushed over on it, "I'll explain later if you like. The manner in which you attacked Hiyok was odd as it was, then with Hiyok attacking Skybolt and me I knew there was something wrong. Plus the fact he was actually landing his hits was remarkable in its own.." Tar seemed to sneer somewhat at this comment but he cleared his throat and continued, "It was a pity you managed to actually knock me out and as I can understand now I can see why Hiyok had no recollection of what had happened, Skybolt being knocked out already didn't help much either and the lack of any form of relationship between me and my 'trainer' gave me no information as to what had happened." 'Tar frowned for a moment as he paused and thought over something, I decided to leave him and think myself for a moment. I'd never really thought of anyone being able to tell I was Are'ea, no one up until now had ever thought it possible it could be.   
'Tar suddenly laughed and I guess it was the expression on my face or something, the fact it gained a very surprised look at his laughter didn't help much as he started laughing harder. Shaking off my embarrassment I decided on asking a question, "How come you could tell? You said you were old, no offence-" "None taken." "-and no one at all has been able to tell up until now..." 'Tar stopped his laughing and smiled at me, "Like I said I am old, a lot lot older than you'd think... take a guess will you?" I scrunched up my nose slightly and took a wild guess, "120? I've heard of some ground types living a long time.." 'Tar's smile became even wider, "Oh, there aren't many who are as old as me, especially if you compare it to the general population of pokemon. That was a good guess, but I don't really look that old do I?" I shook my head, "Younger yes?" I nodded. "Well you'd be wrong, you're thinking too small, I'm at least a couple of thousand years old I'd say by now, never caught the date and time does seem to fly," I stared at 'Tar, he couldn't possible be that old. "But, but, you look just like any other young pokemon, you don't even have all that many scars or anything... most older pokemon have at least those don't they?" 'Tar laughed again, "Oh yes, most do. I just don't seem to damage very easily though, never scarred very easily, comes with the package." I raised a brow, "Pardon?" 'Tar cleared his throat but I interjected first, "How are you so old?" didn't seem fast enough though as he said almost the moment I did, "First will you tell me how you change minds?" He finished after me so I actually got to hear his question, it was fare enough I guessed, "As long as you tell me how you're so old.." he nodded and I began.  
After I finished 'Tar seemed to fall into a deep thought and I didn't have a chance to ask him anything as each time I went to open my mouth he'd wave his boneclub and I'd automatically shut up. He was the first one to speak, "How'd you find out you could switch minds then? It sounded like you didn't believe it'd all just happened when it first did..." I paused and had to think for a moment, "Oh well," having been doing the mind switch for so long it'd become second nature to me and I had to think to remember when I first did it properly..."Oh, right. It was a couple of months after I met Ran'nno'ch, I'd pretty much really forgotten about it happening except for the few times when my mind would just slip back to it, though I'd fairly well convinced myself it couldn't possible be true. But one day when I was particularly bored I decided why not? Might as well see if I could do it. So After coming home from PokeTech I got Molly, our family Meowth and took her into my room. It took me ages to figure out how to do it and I was just giving up and petting Molly when I put my both hands to her head and we switched. I remember be scared out of my wits and my new claws dug holes through my sheets that the nanny gave me hell for. I was stressing like mad but my hands where still on my head and I continued moving my face and head around in them until I got into the right position and I switched back again. I retracted my hands and was suddenly excited. I figured it out pretty quickly after that, though I couldn't use Molly again, from that moment on she wouldn't come near me. That was a pity, she really was a nice Meowth."  
"People were a different thing though... I learnt that by accident, I didn't even know I was able to do it, though after the Molly episode I was careful around any living things. Heh, I remember trying to switch minds with a tree once, wanted to find out what it would be like, course it didn't work, didn't know where to put my hands. People though, they're harder. They understand quicker than most pokemon what's just happened, so you have to be careful..." I didn't feel willing to go into my first experiences with human mind switches.. "..Me and Are'ea have figured out a fairly good method though in the past year or so as to how to switch without much trouble. I'll switch with Are'ea first, then I switch with the person I want to and Are'ea will recall her body with the other persons mind into the Pokéball and they go into a stasis. Seeing as people in general don't understand the experience of being in a Pokéball they just think they had a blackout or something. It works well for us. Also it means that I wont loose the person's mind who I now have the body of, which can work out extremely badly..."   
I choked on my own words and realised I'd been looking at the floor for the last couple of minutes, also a sizeable puddle had just appeared in front of my eyes on the stone floor. I frowned and shook my head trying to clear away the tears and looked back at 'Tar wiping a paw across my face. "Well anyway, yeah,-" "-Can only you switch or once you switch minds with someone they can switch as well?" I didn't even think before I answered, "Oh no, only I can switch, or when I've switched with someone, the last body I switched with can switch back with me, but otherwise only I can. Who ever I switched with is stuck as they are or were."   
'Tar looked over at the half asleep Are'ea a moment, "Does this mind switching stop the age process?" "No..-" I started before I realised I'd even said it. 'Tar turned his head around to look at me, "Then how come..?" but his question died in his thoughts as the expression on my face obviously put him off pressing. I decided to change the subject none the less, plus it was my turn for questions.   
"So you going to tell me how you can be so old and be hardly scarred or look even really old at all?" 'Tar sighed and rolled his shoulders, "Yes I did say I'd tell didn't I. Well at least you'll be able to say you're one of the few who'll ever know." I tilted my head questioningly but his eyes seemed to of glazed over as if he was in some far away world and he started talking...  
  
"I was much much much younger. No more than a couple of years old, still a Cubone for that matter. My younger brother was with me at the time and we were travelling through a cave system we'd only just discovered the night before. But it'd been too late then for us to search as we were still living with our mother then and we had to get back to her. So we'd returned the next day having had wonderful dreams about what dangers and surprises we'd find in our new adventures. Both me and my brother had heard legends of this one cave that was meant to lead to the unimaginable darkness and any pokemon wether if they were dark type or not would be swallowed up and could never escape, and so we both had thought maybe this was the cave. Being the young ages we were we didn't really understand the full meaning of these dangers, though I was a good deal older than my brother. My mind was still fairly young and ill-experienced in most situations so I knew no better."   
"As we travelled along we played our games, tag, hide and seek, bone throw, typical youngster games. So far we'd seen nothing really all that interesting, nothing more than what we would of found in our home cave and our enthusiasm was starting to wane, at least mine was. 'Raw's was still fairly well lit and it was him who was insistent that we should keep going. So we did, and really, I wish I hadn't now, but I can't change the past," 'Tar shrugged but I had no mind to interrupt even in his pause and waited for him to continue.   
"Well anyway, we did finally come across something interesting. A large open area at the end of a tunnel of which every surface was coated in a red substance that was giving off the slightest glow. I knew something didn't feel good the moment I stepped into the room after my brother, but 'Raw seemed indifferent and was searching here and there with rekindled interest trying to imagine what this place was for. I couldn't help but laugh at most of the suggestions of my brother and he made me become less wary and I joined him in his games."  
"He was still bouncing around this particularly high pile of stones when I decided I'd like to have a closer look at some of the things in the place and went up to one of the walls and ran my boneclub against the surface. A moment later and a line of runes suddenly appeared pulsing white upon the red surface. I stepped back but the glowing white had attracted my brother and figuring out what I'd done he copied the action and went right around the room scraping his boneclub against the wall. Within minutes we were standing in the middle of a red glowing room with pulsing white lights and I felt distinctly uneasy. I quickly grabbed my brother to me and held him still. Something was definitely wrong and I wanted to leave right then. But the chance was lost."  
"As I started dragging my struggling brother it appeared in front of us. I didn't know what it was at first, but first impression was something like an Angel. It was tiny and cat like but had wings as large as a Pidgeot. For the most part one of its large wings was covering its small frail body before it suddenly dropped to the ground in front of the frozen forms of both me an my brother and looked up at us in the most curious of manners. Half its body was made up of white fur and feathers while the other half was black, something different to anything I'd ever seen before, I didn't know of any pokemon that looked like this thing. My brother started squirming again and pulled himself away from my loose grasp and ran closer towards the creature. It didn't move though, not even a flinch until he'd stopped in front of it and then it made the simplest gestures like that of a Rattata or something else as simple minded. It sniffed at my brothers boneclub and paw as he attempted to pat the creature, it smiled with its bright eyes, one black the other white like its body, its long tail twitched slightly in a wag."  
"I will admit I was lulled into a false sense of security, I should of known better... this was not a place where good had been done, just because this thing looked like and Angel, didn't mean it was. A quiet sing-song voice suddenly filled the room and my head, both me and my brother had never experienced psychic speech before and were most baffled by it. 'Raw came to realise it was the small black and white Angel before me though, "You said dat didn you?" he queried. It nodded and smiled, I titled my head and looked at the creature, This time it looked up at me, Its tail flicked slightly and I looked at my brother and he looked at me. We both grinned, a wish, how cool. And maybe it'd actually come true, Angel's were meant to be able to do anything, so why shouldn't it come true? 'Raw was about to say something when I tapped his skull lightly to shut him up and went first instead. "Well, if it's any wish, I want to be able to see all my family live as they like," I grinned, who'd of thought someone my age would wish for something like that? The little Angel seemed most surprised but a glint in its eyes seemed to give the impression it could as it nodded its head then looked to my brother. He blurted out without thinking a wish that too many make, "I want to be immortal! I want to be around forever and ever!" Now this really got the small Angel creatures attention and it smiled quiet a lot as it eyed my brother. My caution suddenly came back as I looked from my brother to the creature. But it just continued to smile and looked at me back nodding its head once more, With that it spread both its wings and turned its head towards the red roof of the room. Paws became outstretched and from each a ball of energy grew, white upon black and black upon white. Suddenly from each a stream erupted and leaped towards its opposite, but they met in the center and started swirling around and around each other. Both me and my brother watched in awe as this light show was had, it blotted out everything else as another moment passed and from the center ball of energy just under the Angel's chin two entertwined beams of light came towards 'Raw and me. The two twirling beams split dead center between us and went one to each. The white to me and the black to my brother. It started to encircle each of us and I could hear 'Raw laughing and giggling with joy, his childish wish of immortality was about to come true. I couldn't help but feel good myself actually. The lights engulfed both of us in a manner so much so that I could no longer see my brother as the white light blinded everything around me."  
"When it finally did leave I was left standing looking forwards at the Angel creature. I felt no different but as I looked over at where my brother should of been standing I screamed. All that stood there was a stone statue in the shape of a young Cubone no more than a couple of years old, the same age as my brother. I ran straight towards it continuing to scream and attempted to smash it with my boneclub thinking that my brother was trapped inside or something but the only result I got was an bone shattering jolt as my boneclub made connection with the stone. Spinning on my heels I barrelled my way towards the Angel with a death cry but it merely looked at me and I bounced off an invisible barrier steps before I was within reach of hitting the creature. I can't exactly remember what I said then, I couldn't possible done more than ramble but the creature let me speak my words before saying something itself. I made your wishes come true. Your brother wished to be immortal. And so he is. Immortal stone that can never be destroyed, he shall exist forever and ever just as he wished. I glared down at the creature, "He didn't mean like that! He meant to be alive just like me and live forever! Not as stone!" It just tilted its head, It smiled as it looked at me and I growled at it, "Ok then, well I want to wish for my brother back!" Shaking its head the Angel continued to smile, With that it disappeared from the spot, leaving me standing there dumbfounded. What had just happened?"  
"I ran away that moment. I wanted my mum, I wanted my family with me. I continued running until I got back to my cave and told my mother what had happened. She didn't totally believe me but my uncle was there on one of his rare visits and he wanted to see what I meant. So I took them both to the place, my mother froze before we entered the cave and my uncle was extremely reluctant. But when he came out the expression on his face was unreadable but it broke my mother into tears. It happened that I'd taken my brother down a sacrificial tunnel, where an ancient race had preformed various ceremonies and other things not good and that the magic was still strong within the area. My uncle explained that to me before I was told to leave."  
"My mother never forgave me for letting what had happened happen to my brother, so instead of just loosing one child she lost two. I didn't come back to well after the time she died and it still hadn't dawned on me what my wish meant now. I thought I would live as long as my family would, and my theory seemed to work well as I watched as my family grew and shrank. But it wasn't until a time that my family had did almost totally die away, I thought it had, due to the blood war of the ancients, that it truly did dawn on me. For during this war I'd nearly been killed, mortally wounded more than a hundred times yet never actually died. For the first time in centuries I returned to my brother within that cave to find an answer to something that had been plaguing my mind. As I stepped into the room at the end of the tunnel I noticed first of all that the walls were no longer red and a large amount of the other things that had been within the room were no longer there. But my brother was. He still stood like that day he'd been turned to stone by his wish, still a Cubone, unlike me who was now a Marowak. It was then that it dawned on me. I'd received both our wishes by accident. Because of my brother choosing to live forever and me wishing to see all my family live as they wished I had become default immortal just like my brother. I don't know if there's irony in that but I knew that suddenly I felt a lot older than I ever had previously."  
"So, now, since that day I made my wish with my brother in that red room I've been alive and probably will be for longer than you can imagine more. I've had hundreds of trainers, made thousands of friends, few which I really recall fully. I've lived through the raise and fall of pokemon and human civilisations, wars and other things. I've already been tired much longer than I would like but I can't change what has happened. I'm cursed with it now."  
'Tar looked at me and I looked at him, I couldn't help but feel sorry for him, though I guess if he knew my entire story he'd feel just as sorry for me. "Well I guess we've both been tricked by the same creatures. Though mine appeared as an Angel instead of a Demon," he sighed and sat down heavily. I frowned and a wave of drowsiness suddenly swept over me, "What time is it...?" I mumbled to myself, "11 I'd say" piped up 'Tar and I blinked in surprise. 'Tar smiled at me, "You do learn some useful things living as long as I have at least," I smiled back but my mind was starting to drift elsewhere. 'Tar seemed to notice but didn't say anything. "Do you mind if I sleep now? I'll probably have to wake up early. You can stay out of your Pokéball if you want I don't mind. Just uh, make sure none of the others see you ok?" 'Tar looked at me questioningly but laughed and smiled a moment later, "Sure, that's fine. I'll stay out if you don't mind. Like to stretch these legs a little." I nodded and quickly got up onto all four paws and raced across the stone floor to Are'ea and pounced on top of her face. She yelped in surprise waking up the moment my hot paws made contact with her face and I grinned trotting around the bed and yapping at her. Waking up fully Are'ea glared at me before lazily picking me up and switching our minds.   
Finding myself suddenly within an even sleepier body than I'd been in I had to make sure I didn't drop Are'ea rather carefully. Yawning and placing her lightly beside me I got up and dragged myself up off the bed to get unchanged before getting into the bed. I looked around for 'Tar and saw he was actually curled up asleep where he'd been sitting talking to me. I smiled and curled up more comfortable in bed as I rolled over and suddenly felt a warm body up close to my face a couple of seconds later. Are'ea's warm body was most comfortable as I patted her lightly a couple of times before drifting away to sleep.   
  
******************************** had to of been a week since the last chapter and this, BAD BAD me x.x; *wavies* I'll try and do them more often from now on, no? I don't have much more to do anyways ^.^ *wavies* ************************* 


	19. 19

Waking up not enough hours later to the sound of someone banging way too hard on my door I shouted out a, "Just wait a moment will you!" which didn't get the desired response as Kandy just barged her way into my room none the less.   
"Hey! I might not of been dressed!" I yelled at her but she just grinned and shrugged igoring me, "Well you're not are you? So no big deal." I sighed and pulled myself out of the bed not feeling anywhere near as good as I would of liked and mumbled something under my breath. Kandy didn't notice though as she'd spotted something else that caught her attention, "Hey what's that?" I looked up to see what she was pointing at and realised 'Tar was standing looking at Kandy in a perfectly awake and some what agressive manner. "Oh uh, it's a Marowak, he was here when I came in," I couldn't really think of what to say and I wasn't about to tell Kandy that he was mine at the moment, there was no way to explain seeing as she still thought I had the Persian. She looked at me and raised an eyebrow, "He doesn't look all that nice, you ok?" I rubbed my eyes and yawned once before answering, "Oh no, he's fine, you probably just surprised him or something," I waved at hand at 'Tar but he didn't back away, just lowered his boneclub and sent his attention elsewhere.   
Kandy didn't seem to care and hopped over to me instead, though she went past me and picked Are'ea up off the bed so I guess you could say she was going to her instead of me but what ever. "Well how long's it gonna take you to get ready then? Both Bryce and Antoni are basically ready and both are surprisingly willing to get a move on," she grinned and tickled Are'ea's chin as she spoke. Are'ea was obviously most enjoying it as she shot me an evil look when I told Kandy I'd be ready as well in fifteen mins at the latest and that she HAD to leave so I could ready. She shrugged, smiled, gave Are'ea a last pat and made some sort of baby sound at her, waved a hand at me and left, of course leaving the door open.   
Sighing I was moving towards the door when 'Tar saved me the trouble by throwing his boneclub and hitting it closed. I said my thanks and went about getting ready to leave. Quiet happy to not have to drag all my items around in my backpack everywhere I was going for once. Calling both Are'ea and 'Tar back into their pokeballs having decided to take them both with me I left my room, making sure to close the door firmly and walked down to the intersection where the others should be. Lucky me was the last one, Antoni was even slightly happy to see me for once as it meant we could leave and go exploring this famous city that I still hadn't grasped the name of yet.   
For the first couple of hours we just mostly walked in the direction of anything that sounded or looked or smelled remotely interesting, which wasn't that hard. There always seemed to be something interesting just around the next corner or down the next street. I couldn't help but be surprised at just how many people and pokemon were actually in the city as well, you'd think more people would know about this place. I guessed that maybe a lot of people just stayed once they got here or something, seeing as all the best trainers came anyway so it'd probably be easier to wait for the challenge to come to you. Another thing that surprised me was that there didn't seem to be all that much technology type of stuff, with people depending on what their pokemon could do to help with everyday things. I guess a city thousands of years old made of stone up in the middle of nowhere was rather hard to keep up to date with the outside world.   
It wasn't until well past midday that we finally stopped at one of the smaller plazas in an outdoor restaurant sort of thing and had a rest. Being able to get up and grab whatever we liked from a large table covered in food after paying for an all you can eat was wonderful and made a good setting for a comfortable lunch/really late breakfast. For once I was actually willing to talk just as much as the others and got some decent respect, to a degree at least. As an agrument began to start up over where we were to go next my mind started to drift elsewhere and I started watching some of the other people and pokemon around us. A man much to large for my liking was sitting bent low over a table with his Machamp next to him and both were stuffing their faces in a somewhat less than dignified manner. But I couldn't help but think they didn't care about others as I doubt anyone could really get off on the better side of a fight. Turning my gaze around I spotted a group of trainers that were obviously tamers as each of them seemed to have at least hold a half dozen scars each had a tough look to them. The small selection of pokemon with them didn't look much better, a couple of broken horns and claws, spiked fur and scratches everywhere. Then right at the other end of the sets of tables was a large group of girl trainers that were surrounded by the cutesy rare type of pokemon like Clefairy and Igllybuff. I couldn't help but be glad they were where they were, every now and then there was a scream of shriek followed by laughter that was extremely annoying. Scattered around at a couple of the tables were other people and trainers but no one really stood out to me so I went to watching the people and pokemon moving around between some of the nearby stalls or just walking by.   
Being able to sit like that for a good fifteen minutes straight at least, I got to see more rare and unusual pokemon than I'm pretty sure I'd ever seen before. There were more than a decent amount of shiny and discoloured pokemon, most noteable for me was what I think was a golden Vulpix, but I can't be totally sure, it was only in view for less than a second before it disappeared again from where it'd come from behind some trainers legs. Then there was every Eevee'lution under the sun, way too many pink pokemon, some of the rarer of the rare psychics and dark types and I'm sure I saw a Kabuto scuttling around somewhere.   
I was only finally disturbed when Kandy screamed something at Bryce and seeing as I was sitting right next to her I got the full blow to my ears. Blinking and trying to get rid of the ringing in my ears I looked at the three other people sitted at my table and wondered what I'd missed. Both Bryce and Kandy were glaring at each other in such an intense manner that you'd think they were worst enemies and Antoni was sitting between them looking extremely uncomfortable. Probably as there was still food infront of Kandy and Bryce and Kandy had a spoon still in hand with a large pile of cream cake on it. I waited to find out what the argument was about as I didn't want to ask, mainly as I didn't want either Kandy or Bryce turning on me. I glanced around past everyone at the table and noticed that some of the other people around where looking at our table and I quickly turned my attention away from them and back to the people I was with, hopefully this would be cleared up soon.   
It did clear up fairly soon, but I think I missed something during the time of the stand off and the end. Mainly as it did turn into a big fight somehow, though a nice and messy food fight, not fist or word and I don't have a clue how or who started it and why would of been something I would of appreciated being told but wasn't. Smart me was one of the only people in the end not to be covered head to toe in food as I'd actually had the idea of hiding under a table. But I will say this, it was enjoyable to watch the reactions of some of the people. The guy with the Machamp wasn't that bad after all, him and his pokemon joined in almost straight away, and a Machamp being as big and strong as it is with the addition of an extra set of arms was one of the best at pelting other people and pokemon with food. The cutesy trainers at the other end of the tables ran off pretty fast before it even got into full swing screaming and shouting as the Machamp threw bowl after bowl of food after them for a good hundred meters or so. Another good addition to the food fight was someones Tangela that was doing a good job of using its vines to both repeal and toss food at anyone around it. People had joined in from everywhere, probably attracted by all the noises and it seemed like a war zone, I even took some hits after I'd moved under the table, but I think that was more by accident than anything else.  
Everything stopped at once and I mean literally when a group of four people arrived. Madame Karri was one of them, of the other three there was a young woman with a really high bleached blonde ponytail dressed in a pale blue outfit, a bald middleaged man dressed in shades of grey-white with dark glasses and last was a really tall youngish man completely done up in black. Now everything had stopped as Madame Karri had her albino Alakazam out as well as a Hypno and a normal Alakazam, all preforming disable on the participents of the food fight. It didn't take very long after that before everything was back to how it had been previously, aside from the fact half the food was now gone from the dishes and still dripping off of people and their pokemon. But all the food that'd been on the ground, tables, benches and everything else was removed psychically leaving the area relatively clean. People quickly made there way away faster than I would of liked until aside from Madame Karri and her friends, Antoni, Kandy, Bryce and me were left in the plaza resaurant serving area.   
Standing no longer paralyzed none of us seemed that comfortable, I couldn't help but think Kandy and Bryce felt the worst, though the look of Bryce's face was giving the impression he was trying to convince himself that it was Kandy who started it and not him. I watched and waited but nothing really happened...  
At least until Madame Karri suddenly moved like lightning and was standing infront of Kandy and looking up at her with a stern face. Kandy took an involitary step backwards like the rest of us and she didn't look all that pleased. That changed a moment later as Madame Karri took her attention to Antoni and her face lit up happily, "Well, this can be over looked this once..." She turned to her companions and waved them over, "Come, come, meet my guests."   
Kandy was still fidgeting quiet a large amount and Bryce was doing a good job of catching up as the other three people walked up to us. Antoni was unsure, I knew it, but he was keeping a confident look as he looked at each of the people. I couldn't help but think this must be some sort of special group or something from the reactions of the other trainers that had been around before. I looked over each as best I could, including Madame Karri again to see if maybe I should know them but nothing would click in place. Frowning I realised that I'd been concentrating too hard and Madame Karri had already started talking a little while ago. Both Kandy and Bryce looked less worried and I started listening so I could find out who exactly these people were.   
Madame Karri was pointing to each of us in turn, "Of course, this is Antoni, the one I invited and told you about," Antoni went slightly red and I couldn't help but grin. "This would be Bryce, he was the young man who was with Antoni when he was invited to come. Next is this young lady, the one who started the food fight I'd say," Kandy flustered and Madame Karri smiled a little before finishing her comment, "with the help of Bryce." Now it was Bryce's turn to be upset but he was ignored and it was my turn for an introduction, "And this would be Damon..." she paused a moment and frowned as she looked at me, but she shook it off and continued, if a little short, "that last of this little party." It went unnoticed, either that or no one cared, I like to think the first one, and the three other people said their hellos.   
"Now, as a matter of fact I was about to send someone to give you a message Antoni, it would seem that before dusk I've been able to set up a match for you between yourself and one of my friends here. But seeing as you're here already I wont have to will I?" Madame Karri smiled and I decided to watch the man dressed in black, I really didn't like Madame Karri's smiles. "Of course as I stated in my letter you have choice with everything I offer you here, and your choices are if you want to take the intial match and who it is you would like to battle." Bryce nudged Antoni in the side as he seemed to be having some trouble speaking. Coughing a moment Antoni said yes and asked what Madame Karri meant by him being able to choose. I finally got to find out the names of Madame Karri's friends, "Well, you may choose between which of my three friends here, Damien, Hail or 'Arish, all three which have agreed to my conditions of battle already."   
Antoni looked between the three people and picked the lady with the bleached hair, Hail. Personally I don't know who I would of picked, the impression they were all strong trainers was an understatement, but the way each stood didn't make me think I'd really want to battle them even if they weren't great trainers. Hail for one had a very cold feel to her in general, Damien was looking down on all of us but his attention was clearly elsewhere, 'Arish, well, I couldn't figure out what to think. But I was glad Madame Karri herself wasn't an option to battle, I don't like psychic trainers much myself, it's extremely hard to battle them. There's no real way to tell if they're cheating in any way and even if you do find out it's near impossible to prove, also with the ability to go into other peoples minds or pick up on thoughts is not something I'm anywhere near comfortable with.   
  
  
***************** i need to stop this, I don't like that finish but eh, next ************************************************ 


	20. 20

To say the least Kandy was excited about Antoni's big match that was about to come up and was extremely annoying as she bounced about and talked way too fast. And the time in which she had to do that was longer than it should of been as Antoni upon finding out where to go and when had decided he wanted to go back to Madame Karri's and get all his pokemon so he had a better selection to pick from. I guess it wasn't all bad as it meant I was able to collect 'Tar as well, though with a little trouble, as I was getting a niggling feeling in the back of my mind that wouldn't go away but I couldn't figure out either.   
Anyway, it was barely half an hour between organization and arrival at one of the four large stadiums that were built into the city. It was larger than any other stadium I'd ever been to and was decortated rather ornately with carvings of different kinds everywhere. Mostly of pokemon battles, I couldn't get close while I was walking with everyone but something seemed odd about all of them. I didn't get to dwell on it though as Hail was waiting for us to the entrance of the arena. Everyone said their hellos again, though this time it was only Antoni, Bryce, Kandy, Hail, me and Madame Karri, for the moment I didn't know where Damien and 'Arish were.   
Madame Karri was quick to get Bryce, Kandy and me to leave Antoni, Hail and her alone and go into the stands. I was most happy to do so but neither Bryce or Kandy were that happy about it, especially Kandy, she whined an embaressing amount before Bryce and I could drag her away. She got over it quickly like usual though and was back to being excited about Antoni's match against Hail. She hadn't seen Antoni battle in a while but was under the impression it would be a good battle, Bryce didn't think other wise either. Actually, I couldn't help but want to see how Antoni had improved with his pokemon as well, he must of improved since I last saw him train and even then he'd been a great trainer. It probably would be a good match, I'd also get to see Hydradam again which would be great.   
I was smiling to myself as all three of us sat down in some front row seats. I hadn't actually said anything since dragging Kandy away from Antoni and Kandy seemed to of realised this as she sat herself down between me and Bryce and started bugging me about things. Mostly things I didn't want to talk about either as she brought up when I'd last met Antoni and what I'd thought of him as a trainer then. I think she finally got the impression I didn't want to talk about it when I said something harsh to her that even surprised me. A moment later I excused myself and left both Kandy and Bryce looking at me blankly as I walked away.   
I was thinking over what it was exactly I'd said when I realised that there were quiet a lot more people in the stadium than I first thought and more and more seemed to be coming in from different access points. Stopping a moment I had a good look around and realised the stadium must sit thousands of people, but there was also some really odd things about some of the sitting areas. As you went further up the rows grew larger and larger and even in some of the lower rows there were huge areas that were basically flat, though I guess they were on a slant as I could most of the surface to these areas. A thought popped into my head and I nodded in agreement with it, you could fit nearly any pokemon in this place, the sitting arrangements were well suited to most pokemon species I could think of.   
As a rush of young people went past me, shoving harder than I liked and pushing me into a barrier I spotted something out the corner of my eye. Straightening up I quickly looked in the direction and watched a blob of inky black speed through the air towards the other side of the arena. As I glanced around at some of the other people I realised at least a quarter of them were also watching the blob. Quickly glancing back I thought I'd lost it for a moment before I realised where it'd gone, there was a large section set up like a top box in prime view of the arena and the thing was darting around it.   
It took me a moment or two to realise what exactly the thing was, but it dawned fairly quickly as it paused infront of someone I'd only just met a short while ago. The Gengar stood much taller than any Gengar you'd normally find would and was making motions and I guess talking to 'Arish. Next to 'Arish was Madame Karri and behind her was the white Alakazam, on the other side of Madame Karri was Damien, but there was no pokemon with him and his attention didn't seem to be all there, though of course from my distance I couldn't be exactly sure.   
Another group of people passed behind me going to some seats and I caught a couple of words from their conversations. From what I could tell there was going to be three matches and Antoni was the second one, I guessed that mostly as one of the people had said 'new commer' and I doubted there was anyone newer than us in the city. He'd also only be using two pokemon. I wanted to get some more info but the people were gone too quickly and I really didn't want to follow them. Shrugging I looked over in the direction I'd left Kandy and Bryce and frowned, I didn't want to go back to them right now, I was fairly sure I'd said something in pokemon to Kandy and I didn't want to explain what exactly it was I'd said. I couldn't really rememeber anyway. So my descision was to.. actually, I didn't know what I wanted to do. Not go back, but I didn't want to miss Antoni's match, I guess I could go somewhere else but I didn't know where.   
A thought struck me and I looked over to where I was meant to be sitting. Shaking my head once I sighed before heading back in that direction, with one difference.   
As I sat down I looked up at myself, "Are'ea PLEASE just stay here ok? You'll get to see Antoni soon anyway, he'll be battling in a minute," of course this came out in vul's and pix's but she understood. My face smiled and I looked at Kandy, "Ok, now, say what I told you to ok? ..And in human speak, not Vulpix!" Are'ea rolled my eyes in my direction but continued to look at Kandy before repeating what I'd told her to say. Kandy clapped her hands and grinned before taking her attention to Bryce again. I'd told Are'ea to tell Kandy about what I'd heard, that'd keep her busy until the match and Are'ea would ignore her mostly anyway plus wouldn't have a clue about what I'd said earlier so couldn't be questioned.   
I was gone within moments and no one noticed, not even Are'ea really I'd say. The best and worst thing with being a Vulpix in a crowded stadium was I was small and not really noticeable, good because it meant I wasn't getting attention, bad as I was still not getting attention, but it also meant people keeped kicking me or tripping over me. But I'm fairly used to it and I can dodge most feet easily.   
I didn't really know where I was going, but going I was. Like I was I could either stay and watch Antoni's match as a Vulpix or go back to Are'ea and switch with her to watch it, it really didn't matter. But for the moment I wanted to be a Vulpix. Nothing stood out so I didn't stop for a good long while and by then the amount of people walking about weren't so many and I was having no trouble with having to dodge feet and everyone seemed to excited to really notice a little Vulpix wandering around on its own.   
I only did really stop when a large wall came up infront of me. Now with most walls I just move around them like any normal person would, but I didn't. I took a couple of steps back away from it before sitting down and admiring it. Of course I wasn't just looking at a blank wall, I was actually looking over the engravings and carvings made in and on it. They were just like the pictures I'd seen with Bob and Marcus... of course not exactly. These were more battle sorts, and not war battles like I'd seen, just normal pokemon battles. Well, actually, not so much normal pokemon battles. There wasn't a human in sight and the pokemon were going in groups, pairs and on their own against others. Also these weren't small bruises and scratches over them, there was blood and gashes and I think there was a severed limb or two. These were gruesome battles, these weren't like anything you'd seen in any typical pokemon battle. Yes I know things like that happen, but not this exceissively.   
"YAY!!!"  
I jumped a good couple of feet into the air as the crowds behind and around me cheered louder than I'd ever heard before. Probably because of the fact a Vulpix's hearing is better than a humans. Shaking my head and trying to get rid of the ringing in them before running up to the closest barrier to look down into the arena over the rows of seats and I realised that the first match had already started. Scanning over the arena I noticed an Arcanine laying on its side and breathing heavily just outside the white lines on the left side of the arena and positioned dead center of the match floor a Jynx happily doing a victory dance. Looking to the two trainers it wasn't hard to guess who the victor was, the other trainer recalled their Arcanine while Hail waited with her Jynx.   
Suddenly from everywhere around me a loud voice boomed, "And Hail waits patiently for Eric's third and final pokemon to be shown."   
My paws pinned over my ears I whined to myself before moving and being extra jumpy tried to figure out where the voice over was coming from, I didn't really think there'd be much in the way of speakers or anything. I missed the next pokemon to be released by the trainer as I wandered around again and accidently went tripping over one of my own paws and fell into an area I automatically didn't think I should be.   
Shaking my head once more I looked up at the back of a very large pair of white legs. My ears went straight flat to my skull and I hugged the floor as I looked past the albino Alakazam and to the three chairs infront of me that held my new aquaintences. Lucky me wasn't noticed and the Drain seemed to be asleep as my ears pricked up and I could hear a soft snoring noise. Smiling at my own lucky I slowly edged towards the chair closest to me, which happened to hold Damien as best I could guess from the black visible amung the chair legs. Laying flat to the ground under Damien's seat I got to see just how great a view of the arena I had. We were dead center of the stadium on the long side and half way up the stands at least but there wasn't a single thing blocking our view. There was maybe five or six rows in all the space between us and the arena floor and only a couple of those seats were filled and they felt like as if they were miles away.   
"He's gotten better hasn't he?"  
My ears suddenly perked up at the sound of 'Arish's voice and I turned my gaze away from the battle that was going on between Hail's Jynx and the newly released Exeggutor.   
"Yes definately, but he still wont beat Hail."  
"Oh yes, of course. But its amazing just how much he's learnt in such a short time isn't it?"   
"W-" "-When will the next match be happening already? I have things I must do and I'm only here because you insisted Karri..." That was obviously Damien and he sounded dead bored or at least half asleep.   
A sigh from the central seat and I could hear Madame Karri moving around her chair to face Damien instead of 'Arish, "It'll be soon enough, do be patient Damien."   
A groan from Damien was obviously not the desired response as Madame Karri said something I didn't quiet catch even with my Vulpix ears but Damien obviously knew what she said as he laughed. It was cut short though as 'Arish suddenly interjected, "Hail lost." Again there was a sound from Damien that wasn't pleasent and a comment to accompany, "You've got to be kidding me, you mean her Jynx lost. She still has two more pokemon to choose from that are of full health. Hail's going to win. The kid has only heavily damaged pokemon left..." I don't think that was the point though as suddenly it was announced right around the stadium that Hail's pokemon had been defeated and that the score was once more even with each one pokemon knocked out.   
"See," Damien sneered before turning away.   
A sigh from the far side told me it was 'Arish and that he was about to say something, "Really, do try being pleasent for once Damien. You're only upset because Karri's trainer picked Hail over you for his battle."   
I looked up at the bottom of the seat above me and blinked, Damien made some sort of growling noise but before he could actually say something Madame Karri cut in, "You know it's true Damien. Now do quit arguing the match is nearly over and we do still have a third match after that." Damien made another indignant sound before making a last comment, but it was barely more than a whisper and wasn't said for Madame Karri to hear, "You and your damn visions.. this is such a waste of time.." was all I could catch before it went off into mumbled nothings. Madame Karri didn't say anything if she did hear though and I went back to watching what was left of the first match.  
They'd all been right, Hail won by miles, the trainer didn't have a chance against the full health of a Lapras with a recovering ability against either of his two weakend pokemon. The match took less than two minutes to finish and there was a great cheer as Hail was announced the winner. The trainer also got his own small cheer of congratulations for doing so well, but that's cutersy.   
There wasn't even an intermission before Antoni was called out, again there was a cheer, but not nearly as loud as the one given for Hail as her name was announced again for the next match. I couldn't really tell what Antoni was thinking from the distance I was at but I knew he was excited, he always loved a challenging match and this was going to be challenging. I wondered a little to myself if Hail was using the same pokemon again but didn't get time to think about it as the fight started.   
Hail released a Piloswine first out into the arena and not long after Antoni released his pokemon... which I never got to find out what it was as suddenly I found something had grabbed three of my tails and pulled me out from under Damien's seat. I blinked a couple of times looking up a innocently as I could at Drain but he didn't seem the least bit impressed and instead made this really weird hissing sort of sound. I froze.  
But I really needn't of worried as a moment later I suddenly found myself standing outside of what I thought was the stadium. Luckily for me it wasn't. I was actually still inside the stadium and I decided then and there that it was time I went back to everyone else.   
I thanked Drain actually as I found myself in a straight line that lead directly to where I wanted to go and it took me no longer than a couple of minutes. Thanked him because that made the trip shorter than if I'd had to make it on my own. I wanted to curse him though for the fact if he'd left me alone I'd of been able to watch those minutes I missed running to Are'ea and the rest.   
Arriving just at the moment as a ear splitting shriek ran through the air I dropped flat to the ground barely two meters from Are'ea and with a perfect view of her suddenly lunging forwards with a silent scream on my lips. Silent only because of all the sound that was already filling the arena. Jumping to my feet as quickly as possible I caught a glimpse of both Kandy and Bryce trying to hold Are'ea back as she continued to try and get at the arena through the corner of my eyes as I looked at the arena myself to see what was wrong.   
Hydradam was out and so was Hail's Lapras again, she must use the same pokemon for the matches, but there was something very wrong with the picture. I couldn't place what it was though, one thing I did know though was that the shriek had come from Hydradam.   
Shaking my head confused I ran as fast as I could to Are'ea, this was going to be impossible as it was to explain, but she was making it worse even as I approached. Bryce and Kandy had obviously been able to hold Are'ea back as she was sitting in her seat again but she was repeating the same words over and over again and in Vulpine. I couldn't help but think I should of known better, something was going to go wrong, why'd I have to leave Are'ea on her own?   
Without wasting a moment I pounced up onto my lap, tails flared out and my eyes lit up with flames, both Kandy and Bryce backed away from Are'ea, most likely not wanting to be flamed. I didn't give Are'ea time to comprehend what I was going to do, but I don't think she would of anyway, my eyes were gushing water and I frowned as both bodies as I switched our minds back. The Vulpix Are'ea didn't even look at me and I don't even think she realised we'd changed back even after I recalled her back into her pokeball.   
I was still frowning and looking at Are'ea's pokeball when Kandy suddenly punched me hard in the side and I looked at her confused for a moment. Shaking it away Kandy said something but I didn't hear it as the voice over thing started up again and my attention was brought to the arena once more. The two pokemon were gone and Antoni and Hail were standing opposite each other. Something was still wrong with the picture but I still couldn't think what it was, my head was pounding for some reason and I couldn't hear anything that was being said from any direction. Continuing to frown I watched Antoni probably more intently than I should of but I wanted to figure out what was wrong. My mind kept repeating to me, 'something's wrong, something's wrong,' and I couldn't shake it off.   
Sound and everything else in the world only came back when Kandy suddenly hit me again, "HEY WAKE UP DAMON!"   
That snapped me out of it and I looked up at Kandy as I rubbed where she hit me, "I'm awake, god.. I wasn't asleep..." Kandy suddenly got a softer look to her and apologised. I just blinked and couldn't find anything to say. Kandy once again changed her mood, "Come on, we've gotta go see Antoni, he lost but god was that a good match... if a little weird," she looked at me oddly a moment. But Bryce butted in before she could say something else, "Yeah, if you call going psycho over nothing a 'lil weird'," he smirked before grabbing Kandy's arm, "come on, like you said, must see Antoni," he was still smirking as he started dragging her after him as fast as possible. This was not good...  
  
  
******************************* I dunno, that was kinda long for me in one chapter x.x; BUT! I just figured out a whole heap of things for meself which is good ^.^ *bounces about happy like* and also... *kicks herself* God, I've been putting this off waaaaay too much, I know it has to of been at least a week since I last typed on this, THOUGH! I will say! I have been reading over past stuff and correcting that, just haven't done new stuff in a while x.x; *sigh* Well, blah blah blah *wavies*  
******************************* 


	21. 21

*******************************  
  
I caught up fairly quickly but I had nothing to say, I didn't know what to say to actually speak. Hanging back as I walked after Bryce and Kandy I found my hands continually going to my face and rubbing my eyes. Why was Are'ea crying? What'd happened to make her so upset? Why had Hydradam screamed like that as well? There'd been nothing wrong with it when I looked.. I shook my head and sighed, I just couldn't figure out what'd happened or even what was wrong.. with anything.  
Looking up I spotted Antoni coming towards us, his face was a mix of emotions, he was obviously glad at going so well at his match but there was disappointment and worry about what'd gone wrong with his best pokemon. I let Kandy and Bryce crowd him for a while and continued to stand back. I didn't want show Antoni what Are'ea had done to me, Bryce was not going to help with that either.   
I sighed and kept my gaze to the floor. I had nothing to say, though I knew I should congradulate Antoni on how well he'd gone in his match or something like that. I think I wanted to do that but something was coming to mind that was making me uncomfortable and was nagging at the back of my mind. Shaking my head I looked up at just the wrong moment, Bryce had said something and all three of them were looking at me.   
"Uh.. I-I, I... I need to go..," I said barely above a whisper looking past all of them, I didn't want...   
  
I ran.   
  
  
  
I didn't stop, not until I'd gone around a corner into an ally I thought was meant to be a street and part way down it I tripped over something.   
I didn't bother to get up.   
I lay on the ground for longer than I probably should of, but at the time I didn't care. Way too many thoughts had just exploded within my head and memories I didn't want to remember where making themselves known again. It really should of rained, you know how in movies and tv shows and things it always rains when something sad happens or whatever? But it didn't.. it just grew dark and I didn't really move from my spot.   
I'd already been shivering for longer than I could think before I did decide to move. Even then I just sat up and pushed my back against the closest solid surface and pulled my legs up tight to my chest. I was still shivering but it wasn't as if I cared. Despite already going through hours of thoughts I didn't want buzzing around my head I still hadn't gone through everything.   
A clang and crash a short distance away from me just got me yelling at whoever or whatever it was to go away. I couldn't help but doubt I was all that presentable to anyone.   
"You look cold.." came a quiet voice that sounded like what smoke would sound like if it had a voice.   
"You would be too..." I choked on a sob and found my arms grabbing my legs tighter. I couldn't stop the shivering, I only just realised how cold it really was, it must of been well beyond dark... My hands unwraped themselves from my legs and went to my face to wipe it as I heard the light pads of footsteps approaching me. "I thought I told you to go away.. I don't want to talk to anyone right now.." Sighing heavily as my hands went to my knees I looked into the dark ahead of me but couldn't see a thing. The soft sounds of the thing coming towards me I could hear though.   
It stopped moving and for a moment it was silence before it spoke again, "Oh that's alright. I never really wished to speak in the first place. Though how you understand me is something you could divulge if you wished, I shall have no objection to bree....."   
My eyes went wider as I suddenly realised that I was talking to a pokemon, I hadn't been thinking as I listened to the thing speak. I'd just been automatically translating it in my head. "Uh, well... You're uh, talking in a general pokemon speach..." Suddenly infront of me I could see. Though not properly, a faint yellow glow started emitting from the pokemon and I got to see what it was. An Umbreon, I really shouldn't of been that surprised.   
It's head cocked to the side as it looked at me making the light dance around within the small area it reached. "That's not a typical human charactaritic, even within these city walls.." I started to stutter but the Umbreon spoke over me and I shut up, "You're new to the city are you not? Otherwise I think I would of known about you being here... Hmm... " It went into thought for a moment, its eyes partly closing before springing wide open again and the dark type looked me dead on. "I must tell Shain," with that it took two spring jumps away from me before turning its head back to look at me once more, "Do stay human pup, I will return soon enough and there is nowhere you can hide from us now..." and he was gone.  
I just sat and watched as the last bit of light disappeared from view. I tried once to get up and leave despite what the Umbreon had said but my legs shook and I just couldn't seem to keep myself standing for even a moment. So I gave up and pulled my legs back up to my chest and hugged them. There was nothing else I could do and I was still shivering like mad. I sneezed a couple of times and I found my hands kept going to my eyes and rubbing them. My cheeks were mostly dry and I wasn't getting any more tears from my eyes but the alley was damp and the wasn't about to disappear.   
I didn't have long to worry about myself anyway, like the Umbreon had said before it left, it returned soon enough. Though now there were three others with it, one a good size larger than the rest and glowing brighter than the others by far. But I still couldn't see the entire alley despite the four Umbreon's glowing rings. I probably didn't want to see it in that much detail anyway.   
Who I guessed to be Shain stepped forwards, holding head high and tail straight out behind to show authority, "You speak in this tongue then Human?" She sneered the last word and I shivered involuntairly and I'm fairly sure I still would of shivered even if I'd been standing in the middle of the desert.   
"Yes-s-s..." my teeth were chattering as I spoke. "I-I-I speak i-it.."   
Narrowing its eyes at me the Umbreon looked over its shoulder and barked something I didn't understand to the other Umbreon. A moment later two of them went sprinting off silently and I had the glaring red eyes of Shain on me again.   
"Well, well, well. This I shall say is unusual, especially for a human... Though of course, not unheard of, but yes, very rare..." her words came like a pur and I found myself most facinated with the way she spoke, but I had nothing to reply...   
I suddenly found myself feeling watched by more eyes than I could actually see but my attention stuck to Shain. "Hmnn... not long now.. You know Human I'm glad we've met... I did so wish to meet you once I knew you were coming. Of course we have the Eon.. But you. You will be something before it happens..." Her red eyes glinted as she loomed over me from barely three inches from my face, "You don't know though do you little Human..?"   
I just looked into Shain's eyes as she stared into mine, my mouth opened as I tried to say something but nothing would come, I didn't understand what she meant. Her head cocked to the side as she watched me, I could see the smile in her features even as she did. She knew something about me...   
Again I tried to open my mouth to say something but a flick of Shain's tail and suddenly she was standing infront of three Umbreon. I hadn't noticed the other two return. I looked at all of them, but my main attention stayed with Shain. I know I was frowning as I looked at her but that odd smile stayed on her face as she watched me. Without a moments notice though all four where gone and so was the feeling of being watched from the shadows by multiple unseen eyes. This didn't really make me feel exceedingly better as I sat and shivered.   
What didn't I know that the Umbreon did?   
Then my attention went to why exactly I was alone again.. if I was that interesting why had they all left me? In anyones mind this shouldn't of sat right. Was someone else coming? I decided then that I wanted some sort of company. Are'ea came to mind but she'd been hysterical before and as long as it had been I didn't know if she was ok or if it'd happen again. So she was out of the picture. Then there was 'Tar... He was the best I had. I faint sound not far off that was growing slowly louder made my mind up for me.   
With a sore arm from gripping my legs so tightly, I unlatched the pokeball from my belt and enlarged it in my hand. In the back of my mind I noticed the sound becoming clearer and I realised it was footsteps. Not wanting to wait I released 'Tar as soon as possible, even as the pokeball was finishing its enlargement. I know that's not good for the pokemon but Spinarak were crawling along my back and I wanted to see a familiar face. The red energy flashed and I looked at a sleep ridden 'Tar. That didn't last long though and as my arm went back to holding my legs with my other arm after putting the pokeball back on my belt, 'Tar woke up and put himself to attention. He looked at me and blinked once before spinning on his heels and with a low growl glared into the direction of where the sound of footsteps were coming ever closer from, bone club at the ready.   
"We shouldn't be here Damon..." 'Tar whispered through his growl.  
  
  
*********************** That was really crap -.- an gah, I've been putting this off alot, an that probably doesn't feel finished as it's not, but i need put something up x.X; bugger me..... but hopefully after a month or so I should have finished this, so yay me... I just have to go back to writing again *kicks herself an hops away now* ******************* 


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